


Dominance

by ashitanoyuki



Series: Righteous [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Angels, Belts, Bondage, Character Death, Crime, Demons, Dominance, Drug cartels, Drugs, Dubious Consent, F/M, Incest, Kidnapping, Killing, M/M, Message the author about triggers if needed, Murder, Mutilation, Nonconsensual, Orgasm Denial, Possessiveness, Prison, Serial Killers, Sex as dominance, Slavery, Smut, Torture, Unpleasant smut, criminals, dubcon, kidnap, possessive, sex as punishment, supremacist groups, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 65,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashitanoyuki/pseuds/ashitanoyuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black market connections and shady favors had never been a problem for the Winchester family. When Dean Winchester shows up at his brother's apartment, Sam knows that he is about to be dragged back into the life he had tried so hard to leave. Death and destruction are just a game to the Winchester boys, and they are perfectly content to live ordinary lives as the FBI's most wanted. However, when a supremacist group shows an interest in recruiting Sam, the boys find themselves dragged into a situation far more convoluted, complex, and dangerous than anything they had ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Long, long author's note.
> 
> If you are looking for a happy work, this is not for you. If you are looking for fluff, this is not for you. If you are looking for healthy relationships, this is not for you. This first note is here to function as a warning: proceed at your own risk. If you are squeamish, easily offended, or easily triggered, and you contact me to tell me that this fic upsets you, you risk putting me in the hospital with laughter because I warned you from the start.
> 
> This fic contains rape, instances of dubious consent, murder in all sorts of fun ways, torture, mutilation, kidnapping, slavery, utter lack of conscience, and more. It may be triggering; if any of those warnings, or anything similar, are a problem for you, I would recommend passing this one on.
> 
> I have tried to keep a decent balance between porn and plot (and for smut-fic lovers, sorry, that means that the porn is actually rather limited). This is a part of a very long series, and as such, expect to see character development. The Sam and Dean that you encounter in this fic are likely very different from the ones who will appear at the end, provided that anyone sticks around long enough to know this!
> 
> All right, author's lecture over. I will try to keep any other notes short and sweet. Feel free to comment or message me with any suggestions or constructive criticisms. Enjoy the introduction!

Black market connections and shady favors had never been a problem for the Winchester family. Perhaps that is why John Winchester had felt no qualms about killing his wife on November second, 1983. It may have been a fight, a misunderstanding, or a simple rage, but even though he had barely been old enough to remember, Dean Winchester was certain that his mother had died for no better reason than his father’s twisted, deranged passion for murder. His memories of that night were hazy; had anyone asked him, he would have described pulling his baby brother out of a room painted in blood as his father doused the house with gasoline. They never went back to the charred wreck of a place. Had it not been for his father’s focus on the importance of family, he might have not even remembered that his last name was Winchester; he never used his real name for anything official again. Starting from the night when his father killed his mother, he became a shadow of a person, jumping from place to place with his father and brother, never staying in one area long enough for the cops to catch on to his father’s illicit deals and murder sprees.

 

 Dean was ten years old the first time he killed a man. He had no sooner gotten Sammy home from school than his father grabbed his brother and stuffed him in the tiny closet of their ramshackle motel room. If asked, he would have reminisced about helping his father drag one of the creaky double beds in front of the door—“Sammy is too young to see this yet,” his father had said—and grabbing a shotgun on his father’s orders. “Make sure the silencer is on,” the man had said, or something to that extent. Dean could not have told an asker about every murder he committed, but he would have insisted that a man always remembers his first kill, especially if he was not a man when he made it. He remembered pressing the gun to the man’s temple as his father held him by the shoulders, pleas silenced by a greasy rag soaked in motor oil. “Caught this bastard trying to break into the car,” John had said, looking at the man in disgust, or had he met Dean’s eyes with that cold, lifeless stare he had when he had been drinking? It would be foolish to expect Dean to remember. What he did remember was the look of terror in the man’s watery grey eyes, terror mixed with disbelief that his killer was only a child. Dean could have told anyone about the kick from the shotgun and the mess of blood and brains that oozed onto the floor as he shot the man point-blank in the temple. He could have reminisced about covering the man with a threadbare sheet, about pulling Sammy out of the closet and ordering him to keep his mouth shut, keep it _shut_ and never speak of this incident, especially not to anyone at his next school. Dean was not stupid; a kill right in their motel room meant that they were moving towns yet again.

 

They never stayed in one place more than two months, and even then that was only if they were lucky. Dean grew used to changing his name to match the identity his father chose, to changing schools, and above all, to keeping an eye on Sam, who never seemed to adjust very well to a life of moving and secrets. Family was everything—John had taught them that, and if Dean knew anything, it was that John was right or the dissenter was dead. People were not important; they were stupid and meaningless. Family was the only thing that mattered, family and the ones close to it. That meant that it was his responsibility to keep Sammy in line, for his sake and for John’s. If John went to jail, he and Sammy would be shipped off to foster care, and he would never see him again. John had made that perfectly clear. So he put on a brave face at school and lied through his teeth to Mr. Singer—Bobby, as the family contact insisted upon being called—and perfected his speech excusing Sam’s tales of his father’s hobbies as the result of too many horror movies and never, ever talked back when John took him along to help him bury a body. Looking back, Dean would not have called it a good life or a happy childhood, but it was the one that he had, and as long as Sammy was in it, everything was all right.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Sam was seventeen when he decided that he had to get out at any cost. All the lying, and the moving, and the killing that had formed his childhood had taken a toll on him, he would have said. In truth, it was none of the above. He had developed a taste for killing the first time he had gunned a man down, at fourteen years old. There was a rush, a thrill to it, that was certain, but it was a risky business with too much chance for error and arrest. Smart enough to get into college on a full ride, Sam would have told anyone who asked that he wanted to make something of his life, but that would be a lie—it was simply that working as a prosecutor for murder cases would allow him to kill indirectly, and most importantly, legally. His father had screamed and thrown things when Sam had shown him his acceptance letter to Stanford, while Dean had stood there watching, intervening only when John went for Sam’s throat. If asked, Sam would have lied and said that he had not missed Dean, but truth or not, college was the only way out of this dangerous, illegal life.

 

Sam’s good looks had worked in his favor, where scholarship money did not cover everything. Had sex meant anything to Sam, he would have been miserable putting himself through college, but financial aid did not cover the food and housing he needed to stay off campus, where he belonged. It became a simple routine to wander the streets on the weekends, keeping an eye out for adventurous women and lecherous men. Most of them were lucky enough to make it out alive, though Sam’s policies towards his customers did mean that some of them went missing shortly after their encounters. Had anyone thought to question Sam, they would have come away empty, victims of his charming smile and innocent demeanor. His bills went paid, he went fed and educated, and the whole system worked quite nicely in his favor.

           

Perhaps it would have continued, and he would have reached his dream of becoming a prosecutor and sending men to the chair and the injection, had Dean never knocked on his door.

 

 


	2. You Never Get Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean pays Sam an unexpected visit, and lets him in on some bad news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, don't expect updates to happen this quickly. I have the first ten or so chapters written ahead, but I can't keep this pace forever, so don't expect it. Please leave me any constructive criticism you have--I am writing much faster than my beta-reader can edit, and I am impatient, so there are likely mistakes and poor stylistic choices here and there.
> 
> This is the first full-length chapter. Enjoy more exposition! Things will pick up soon.

It was an ordinary night for Sam Winchester. The May air was cool, but far from cold, which was a relief after spending four solid months freezing every time he went out to work. Dressed in ripped, skin-tight skinny jeans, his torso bare and his eyes rimmed with just a hint of make-up, he was sufficiently seductive for the average passer-by interested in men, and looked enough unlike himself that any wayward classmates or professors would be unlikely to recognize him. Anonymity was key in prostitution, Sam had long since decided. While the activity would not land him as severe a jail sentence as any of his previous exploits, it would still put a halt on his schooling, and would likely send any chance he had of becoming a successful lawyer into the trash. Still, it was less risky than holding down a legal job—taxed income was likely to jeopardize his financial aid, and then everything he had done would be for nothing. Sam pulled out a needle and thread, carefully stitching his house-key and wallet into the back pocket of his jeans, as was his customary defense against pick-pockets, and slid a worn pocket knife into his front pocket, where it bulged just enough to let any would-be muggers know that he was armed. A proper Winchester, Sam would be ashamed if he ever had to use a knife against a common mugger, but taking them down was always a hassle—his time was better spent fucking the money out of any client with enough cash on hand.

 

A knock on the door brought him pause. His mind ticked through the possibilities. It was unlikely that he had a visitor—the only acquaintance who knew where he lived was Jessica, the pretty little thing from school he had been stringing along the past several months, and she was in France for the summer. He had paid his rent—he had even paid ahead for the next month, as was his custom, so there was little chance that it was his landlord. He had had a few repeat clients, including one or two who seemed to indicate that they would like to take things beyond their business relationship, but none of the ones who had seemed truly capable of finding out where he lived still drew breath. A neighbor, perhaps, although that was unlikely, given the sort of people who lived in his neighborhood. A few encounters with Sam, and they tended to learn that if he had drugs, he was not the sort to sell or share. Curious, Sam stretched and wandered lazily over to the door.

 

He barely had time to register that his visitor was human, male, and well-built before the man threw him to the floor and shoved his way in, closing the door and locking it behind him. “Sam. Good to see I can still take you down when it comes to it!”

 

Sam blinked, staring at the brother he had not seen in four years. “Dean?” he asked incredulously, rising with as much dignity as he could muster. It always surprised him, the way he towered over the brother who had taken care of him all his life. Questions raced through his head—how have you been, what are you doing, do you need to hide from the law—he settled with a simple “How the hell did you find me?”

 

Dean snorted, jamming his hands deep into the pockets of his beat-up leather jacket. “Good to see you too, Sammy. I’m fine, thanks for asking. I’m not on the run from the law, though it’s good to know you’re concerned. Yes, I’d love a drink, where’s your bar?”

 

“Bar? Well, haven’t you been living the high life?” Sam scoffed, folding his arms across his bare chest. “Answer my question.”

 

“Come on, Sam, we’ve got the same connections. It wasn’t hard to find out what identity you’re using. Samuel Greenwich? Dude, you couldn’t have picked a more boring name.” Dean shook his head, his bright green eyes flitting about the room, taking stock of Sam’s simple possessions—lumpy couch, old television, books strewn across the floor, tiny kitchen visible from the living room, door to the bedroom crammed in the corner. “I need to talk to you.”

 

“Make yourself at home, but you’re going to have to wait. Money doesn’t make itself,” Sam said impatiently, turning back to the door.

 

“Okay, fine. How much for an hour of your time?”

 

Sam blinked and turned around. “One hundred dollars, ordinarily. I guess I can give you a fifty percent off family discount.” Dean’s lips twitched with amusement, and Sam couldn’t blame him—those weren’t words that usually came from the mouth of a prostitute.

 

“Fine. Sixty it is,” Dean said, pulling out a bright pink wallet covered with garish purple hearts. “What?” he said defensively as Sam snickered. “Kill a chick with a wallet, might as well take it, right?” He tossed three twenty dollar bills at Sam. “Call the other ten a tip. Seriously dude, can I get a beer or something? Don’t tell me you’ve gone straight-edge.”

 

“In the fridge,” Sam replied carelessly, sinking onto the couch with a regretful sigh. As nice as it was to know that his brother was alive and not yet in prison, he could not help but think that if Dean had gone through the trouble to track him down, it was bad news. “So, what brings you out here anyways? Something tells me if you just wanted a friendly chat you’d have tracked down my number, rather than my address.” He looked expectantly at Dean, who pulled two beers out of the fridge and walked back into the living room, handing one to Sam as he sat down.

 

“Dad’s missing,” Dean said without preamble, popping the cap off his bottle with his teeth and taking a swig. “Been missing for almost a week now. Cops caught a whiff of him in Seattle and he took off while I stayed to play damage control. He hasn’t called, and I can’t get ahold of him, but I can’t find him in any prison records either. Figured I could use some brains in trying to get him back,” he said, an obvious attempt at flattery.

 

Sam snorted, cracking open his own beer, but putting it down without taking a sip. “Dad? What makes you think I’d want to help you find him? Good riddance to that asshole. Or don’t you remember that he tried to add me to his body count?” Still, Sam could not help but feel a slight twinge of concern. Asshole or not, John was still family, and that was important. He sighed and leaned back, propping his head on the armrest of the couch, letting his legs land over Dean’s to spill off the edge of the sofa.

 

“Yeah, he’s an ass, but still. Come on, Sammy, this is Dad we’re talking about. You know, our father?” Dean took another gulp of his beer. “You know, he wouldn’t have really killed you. He regrets attacking you, he’s admitted it when drunk. You know that’s the only time the old man ever told the truth—he loved you best anyways.” Dean shrugged. “It just killed him, you know? You walking out on the family like that.”

 

Sam returned Dean’s shrug with one of his own. “Dad can see it how he wants. Me, I wasn’t walking out on anyone. If I’d done that, I’d have called the cops on Dad, not gone off to college.” He sighed and picked up his beer, taking a long drink. “I’d help you out, but the thing is, I’ve got an interview coming up. Law school. If I can swing a full ride, I can keep my night job to the weekends. Otherwise it’s going to be a nightly thing and run through my savings as well. I’d rather not have to deal with that.”

 

“Damnit Sam!” Dean leapt to his feet, fists clenched, glaring at Sam, whose legs hit the couch with a loud thump. “This is more important than your stupid degree! This is life! This is _family!_ I’ve needed you around these past four years while you were prancing around at law school, and you’re screwed up in the head if you think this damn _law school_ is more important than Dad!”

 

Coldly, Sam placed his beer on the coffee table and rose, glaring down at his brother. He swallowed hard, trying to fight down the sudden burst of rage that coursed through his body. It was a futile effort, he knew. “This is life? Dean, I _have_ a life. This is family? Where were the familial bonds when he tried to strangle me and threw me out of his life? He can say he regrets it all he wants, but I will never view that man as my father again. You needed me? Well, maybe I needed you. You had Dad. Every time I needed to kill a customer? I did that on my own. Every time I had to talk my way out of an arrest for daring to try to put myself ahead in life? No family to help me out there. I’ve been doing just fine looking out for myself on my own without you, and definitely without Dad.” Sam stepped forward, close enough to feel Dean’s breath on his chin. “So what are you going to do? Going to force me to go with you? I’d like to see you try.”

 

Dean’s eyes hardened. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he said, voice stony and emotionless. His hand went to his belt; quick from the force of old habits, Sam grabbed his wrist as Dean yanked a gun out from the waistband of his loose pants. Dean twisted his wrist, but Sam held on tightly, digging his fingernails into his brother’s arm, reaching up to grapple the gun away from him. Quicker than Sam could evade, Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and slackened his gun hand, dropping the weapon and pivoting Sam around, wrenching his brother’s arm up behind his back and pulling him flat against his chest. “Getting slow, Sammy,” Dean hissed, his breath hot and stale in his brother’s ear. “You think you’ve been taking care of yourself? You wouldn’t last five minutes in the real deal anymore.” Sam growled as Dean gave his arm a sharp yank, sending a sharp shoot of pain up through his shoulder. “Damn good thing I need you for your brains, not your brawn. Now, you coming the easy way, or do I have to knock you out and kidnap you the old-fashioned way?”

 

Seething, Sam went slack, allowing his brother to hold him in the uncomfortable submission position. “Fine,” he snapped, letting his rage fizzle out to an ember of anger. “I’ll go with you for three days. After that, I come back for my interview and go with you until the semester starts. But I keep working my job while I’m running all over the country with you, and I don’t want to hear a single fucking argument when I come back here for school, got it?”

 

“The second one is negotiable. The first one—fine. I’ve got no problems with you whoring yourself out, as long as you’re not bringing your shit back to my car or room,” Dean said, easing up his hold on Sam’s arm. “So, we good? Can I let you pack your stuff without you throwing a bitch fit?”

 

“Yeah, fine,” Sam said, jerking out of Dean’s loosened grip. “After I hit my quota for the night. You go ahead and pack my stuff up, and I’ll be back before dawn, got it?”

 

Dean groaned, bending down to retrieve his gun. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Go paint the town slutty, and we’ll leave as soon as you get back, got it?”

           

“Crystal clear,” Sam replied drily, giving his brother a mock salute before heading out the door.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

It was strange, that Sammy’s sleeping form in the passenger seat brought back so many memories. Dean sped down the highway, deserted at four in the morning, rock music playing from the same tapes that he had listened to as a teenager. It was strangely reminiscent of the first time he had driven the Impala on his own—alone on the road at far too early in the morning, Sam passed out from lack of sleep despite the loud volume of Dean’s music. Dean chuckled, and smoothed his brother’s hair back with one hand, lazily steering with the other. Sam twitched and grumbled, but did not wake up, and that, too, was familiar. He had always been good at sleeping when he could, surroundings be damned. Dean had never picked up the habit—noise usually meant people, and with the exception of Dad, Sammy, and a few other very select allies, people meant danger. Dean was careful; he was not a wanted man, not yet, but he was not enough of a damn fool to think that his circumstances would always be the same. There was always a chance that some slippery witness to his crimes had escaped his careful purges and gone to the police, or was out seeking vigilante justice for himself.

           

Dean supposed that Sam had turned to softer crimes now anyways, but even before he had downgraded from murder and robbery to petty prostitution, he had never shared Dean’s paranoia. Dean and John had always been around to be paranoid for him.

 

Dean had never envied Sam for getting out of the life, for heading to college to try to have a normal existence, a future, even. He had not resented him, not the way John had, but something inside Dean was keenly aware that the house with a picket fence, filled with a wife and a dog and 2.6 kids was not for him. Even had he wanted to turn into an honest life, he doubted that he would know how. What was the point in going to school when all it did was make you a shmuck, a soft sucker just waiting to be knifed for your wallet or murdered for the rights to your wife? Who would honestly choose to pour their time into a soul-sucking job under some slave-driver boss when they could keep their own hours, work on their own time if and when they pleased, taking what they wanted and needed at any time? Who wanted to throw themselves on the mercy of the law, walking the narrow line, unable to stray when provoked or desiring lest some thugs with nightsticks and inflated egos come to haul them off to a cage for the rest of their life? Dean was no fool; he knew that in his line of work, his line of entertainment, he was at risk for arrest and imprisonment on an hourly basis, but at least he would get there honestly, with no pretense at virtue along the way. If he ever had to stand before a judge for robbery or murder, there would be no blubbering, no claims of self-defense or a crime of passion. Cold-blooded murder was clean; robbery for the sake of convenience with no pretense was honorable, and Dean prided himself on upholding his own personal sense of honor.

 

It was nearly noon before they reached the motel, a crummy building straddling the border between California and Nevada. Dean pulled into a parking space, the dividing lines worn to near invisibility on the cracked black asphalt, and punched Sam hard in the shoulder. “Wake up, sleeping beauty,” he called, turning Baby off and turning his attention back towards his brother. “Hey. Bitch,” he said, shoving his brother when he did nothing but stir slightly and roll away at the sound of Dean’s voice.

 

“Fuck off, Jess, don’t have classes today,” Sam muttered, pulling the collar of his jacket up over his eyes.

 

“Jess?” Dean snorted disbelievingly. “I sound like a chick to you? Come on Sammy, we’re here and I need my four hours. Up.” He wrenched Sam’s hands off of his face, pulling the jacket off away from his brother’s eyes.

 

Sam turned towards him and cracked his eyes open. “Oh, right. Your ugly mug’s not what I’m used to waking up to,” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes with the same bleary look he had sported all throughout childhood, finally sitting straight, blinking at the light as though it had personally offended him.

 

“Yeah, well, get used to it.” Dean smacked him lightly on the back of his head. “Come on, you can sleep in the room. I’ll fill you in on everything when I’ve gotten my own beauty sleep, now let’s go.”

 

Sam muttered something under his breath, but exited the car gracefully, stretching as he did. “Got any food?” he asked, walking around to the backseat to grab his duffel bag and backpack, shaggy brown hair swinging in front of his eyes as he bent over to pick them up.

 

“Yeah, in the cooler on the floor,” Dean answered, shutting the car door behind him after exiting. He waited for Sam to dig the cooler out, locking the car as soon as all the doors were shut. “Come on, you can eat inside. The sooner we get checked in, the sooner we can finish sleeping, the sooner we can get everything sorted out and go looking for Dad, got it?”

 

Sam’s huff and subsequent silence was enough of an answer for Dean. He checked them into the motel under the name Tyler Perry, and before long he was sprawled out on a creaky bed, the lumpy mattress a godsend as far as he was concerned. Not bothering to so much as take off his shoes, Dean wriggled under the covers and closed his eyes, ready to sleep.

 

“Dean?” Sam’s voice was quiet, uncharacteristic of his loud, outgoing brother. “You said the cops caught wind of Dad. How’d they manage to find him out and not you?”

 

Dean groaned, rolling over and aiming a scorching look at his brother, seated on his own bed, power bar halfway unwrapped in his large hands, soft and smooth after years of no doubt pampered college living. “Because Dad was reckless and used his own name, and I was smart enough to stick to an alias. Because we weren’t staying in the same place, and I destroyed the phone he called to tell me he was in deep shit. I told you, we’ll go over everything once I’ve gotten my sleep, now shut up and let me recharge for a few hours.

 

“Fine.” Sam bit almost defiantly into his power bar, chewing obnoxiously, no doubt in an attempt to irritate Dean. It was working; Dean grimaced and resisted the urge to teach his brother a lesson the old-fashioned way, the way he had ever since he was old enough to exert any sort of power over his younger brother. He was too tired for a power play, especially not since Sammy was no longer a small, scrawny kid, able to be bullied by Dean without fighting back. He pulled the covers up over his ears and snuggled down into the bed, falling into his customary light sleep after only a few minutes of Sam’s loud chewing.

 

The sun was setting when Dean woke again. Sam had sprawled out on his bed, laptop resting on his chest, head propped up by what looked like every pillow the motel had ever possessed. “Who’s sleeping beauty now?” Sam asked without looking at him, surprising Dean. Perhaps his brother’s awareness skills were not as dull as he had thought them to be.

 

“Shut up, bitch,” Dean groaned, kicking the covers off and sitting up, twisting to pop the kinks from his spine.

 

“Jerk,” Sam replied, almost reflexively, if Dean was reading his brother properly. “All right, time to talk now. What happened, and how exactly are you expecting to find Dad?”

 

“All business right away?” Dean asked, planting his feet on the floor and leaning forward. “Okay, here’s the run down. Dad and I were in Seattle, working some banks. He got a bit itchy with the trigger and killed eleven people when some security guard tried to put out a 911 call. Security guy, unfortunately, lived, and came out of his coma two days later. He had a pretty reliable sketch of Dad put together, and when the cops came to the motel, turns out the idiot had signed in using his real name. Guess he thought it had been long enough, or something like that. Anyways, Dad killed both the cops getting out, but he had to high-tail it from there. A couple of people had seen me with Dad, so I got to play damage control when I found out, telling them I had known him by some alias he’s never actually had, said he’d told me he could offer me work if I kept around so he could find me. Soon as the suspicion was off me, I went looking for you. I haven’t heard from Dad, which means if he’s lying low, he’s lying real low, so I’m guessing the search for him has gone federal. Right now, we need to find him, help him get a really convincing disguise and alias together—more convincing than the ones we’ve always used—and find some way to derail the investigation so he can get on with his life without cops sniffing around him the whole time. Make sense?” He met Sam’s eyes, unreadable as the tall man mulled things over.

 

“So what you’re saying is, Dad fucked up and we’re supposed to clean up his mess for him,” Sam said finally, closing his laptop with a sigh. “What do you want? If you need someone to get him new ID, get Bobby. Need someone to screw with police records, Ash is always willing to keep his trap shut if you pay him enough. I don’t see why you need me to get involved with this one.”

 

Dean sighed, running a hand through his thick, short hair. “I need to track him, for one,” he said, thinking hard in an attempt to choose words that would not anger his brother. “I need to find out where he is, and sure, I could use Ash for that, but the cops have been sniffing around Roadhouse for a while, and I’d rather not get Ash or anyone arrested, or have the cops move Dad if he did get himself arrested and is in jail somewhere. I’m also going to need back-up,” he said. He noticed a slight flare in Sam’s eyes as his brother stiffened at his words. “Come on, a situation like this—I know it’s going to get to the point where I need to blow off steam, and you can’t blame me for that. Just because your college-boy ass has moved on to bigger and better ways of stress relief doesn’t mean we all work that way. I need someone to help me make sure no witnesses live to report me and help me cover my tracks in general. I don’t trust anyone else with that.”

 

Sam snorted, not giving away whether he took Dean’s words as a compliment or as a pathetic show of weakness. It was a moment before he replied. “So, you don’t need me to help you find Dad, you need me to be in your position, playing clean-up for you when you pull an idiotic move,” he said finally, his face still unreadable. “Fine, I get it. You’re damn lucky you’re my brother, otherwise I’d probably kill you myself.” He stretched, arching gracefully as he worked the stiffness from his muscles; Dean almost wished that he had refused, just so that he would have an excuse to show Sam who was boss. “Are we staying the night here, or moving on?” he asked, voice almost cheerful.

 

"Staying here and looking sounds preferable to me,” Dean said, rising from the bed to make his way to the cooler. He unzipped the bottom pocket, pulling out his old laptop from on top of his daily clothing change—saved time pulling luggage from the Impala every time he needed to crash for the night, or so he had always been taught. “Police records or current events?” he asked, settling down into one of the motel room’s rickety chairs.

 

“I’ll take the records. You look for anything that screams Dad,” Sam said, turning his attention back to his laptop. Dean bit back a grin—just like old times, Sammy taking on the more challenging part of the research—before turning his attention to his own work, and anything that might imply that their father had passed through town.

 

 


	3. Back to Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean start up killing again, and catch a lead on their father's location.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to stop updating so frequently or I will run out of pre-written chapters. Ah well. Finally the killing starts! It could definitely be more graphic, but since I've never killed anyone and that's not the sort of thing I want first-hand experience with, I have to leave it up to my imagination and the things I have gleaned from books and television. Any murderers out there want to give me advice... Well, probably don't.

“Check for cameras,” Sam ordered, his steely eyes never leaving the terrified face of the motel manager. “Destroy any that you find, and delete everything on the computer. I don’t want anyone knowing that we were here, aliases or not. I’d like them to stay clean just a little while longer.” He tapped the trigger of his .22 casually, enjoying the look of sheer terror that passed over the paper white face of the motel manager, a slightly overweight man in his forties. Sam wondered if he had a family; he hoped that he did, that the man’s family would be called in to identify his bloody, sticky remains when they were done with him. He had nearly forgotten the adrenaline rush that accompanied every kill, every pathetic victim terrified for their lives at the end of his weapon. Had he honestly given this up for college? For the life of him, he could not remember why.

 

“Outside’s clean, I already checked,” Dean said, casually looking around the front lobby. “Got one, got two, bang bang,” he said with a laugh, pulling up a chair and standing to rip the first camera from the walls. “Hope you weren’t expecting any of this to get to the police” he taunted, tossing the manager a charming grin that did not mask the sadistic glee in his eyes. Sam’s blood surged at the feral look on his brother’s face; were he not so passionate about murder himself, he would wonder how a person could take such delight in such a simple action. He held the gun steady as Dean ripped the cameras from the walls and sauntered over to the front desk. “Say bye-bye to your computer,” he laughed, picking the machine up and smashing it to the floor, taking out the stubborn bits with his own gun. “Money from the cash register?” he asked Sam, cocking his head inquisitively.

 

“Doesn’t hurt,” Sam replied with a shrug. “We’re going to torch the place anyways—might as well not let it go to waste.”

 

“If we’re gonna torch the place, we might as well raid the rooms first,” Dean said, opening up the drawer and pulling out several stacks of crinkled bills. He snorted in derision. “Cheap place. Man, you’d think a freaking hotel would have more on hand,” he said, pocketing the meager pickings.”

 

“You’re the one who likes to keep it cheap,” Sam said, smiling at the manager. “But yeah, we can hit a few other rooms. How are you on bullets?”

 

“Pretty good,” Dean answered, holstering his gun. “I’ll go smear the license plates and you take care of this guy?”

 

“Oh, you’re so nice, leaving me the fun part,” Sam practically purred, shooting his brother a sadistic grin. He turned his attention back to the terrified man in front of him. “Now, shall we?”

 

“No,” the man whispered, clutching the countertop with a white-knuckled death grip. “No, please! Please, I have two girls, their mother’s a monster, she can’t get custody of them, it would—”

 

“Then it’s your lucky day, because you live in a country with a foster care system,” Sam said, grinning sadistically. He shot the man once, twice, three times to make sure that he was good and dead, and made his way out to the Impala, enjoying the gleeful rush shooting through his body. Dean was standing at the car next to theirs, having ripped the door to the gas tank off with a crowbar. Oversized turkey baster in hand, he was siphoning gas slowly from the other car into a gas can, methodically squeezing every drop from the vehicle. “That was fast,” he said nonchalantly as Sam approached. “Thought you were going to take your time with that one.”

 

“He started begging right away, and his voice was annoying,” Sam answered, squatting beside him. “What are you doing anyways?”

 

“Trying to get enough gas to light this place up,” Dean replied, plunging the turkey baster back into the gas tank. “It’s gonna take a while though. Go kill things or something.”

 

Sam scowled and opened the Impala’s trunk. After a few minutes of digging, he found a long, plastic tube. “Move,” he ordered, shoving Dean out of the way and inserting the tube into the gas tank. “Can’t believe I know this and you don’t, you’ve spent a lot more time on the road than I have,” he muttered, raising the end of the tube to his lips. He took a deep breath and pulled, sucking at the end of the tube until he could feel the gasoline rising, traveling through the cylinder. Before it could touch his mouth, Sam pulled away and pointed the end of the tube at the gas can, watching as liquid flowed from the tube into the canister. “Quit wasting time and go get more,” he ordered, well aware that the Impala was stocked with at least three gas cans at all times. “And fill up the car while you’re at it,” he added, turning to grin at the shocked look on Dean’s face.

 

“Shit, Sammy, who knew you could put your job to so many uses?” Dean breathed, shaking his head and walking over to the trunk of the Impala. Sam snickered and finished filling up the gas can, and then picked up a spare crowbar and the third can, heading over to another car. As quietly as he could, he ripped the door of the gas tank off and began the process of siphoning out the gas again, glad for the ornamental shrubbery that blocked the view of the motel parking lot from the road. When the canister was full, he lugged it back over to the Impala and popped the gas tank’s door, filling the tank up with free gas. Why pay when you can steal from the dead?

 

“So how’s it going to be?” Dean asked when they had finished. “Douse the sucker in gasoline and hit a few rooms, then get out and light her up?” He grinned, teeth glinting in the weak sunlight.

 

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Sam said, looking through the trunk and pulling out a few more guns. He tossed a semi-automatic to Dean, who caught it with the ease of long practice. “I’m gonna say no torture on this one, though. We’re walking a fine line with getting caught here.”

 

Dean grunted in agreement. He picked up his gas can and walked towards the motel. Sam followed, admiring the power and excitement barely contained in Dean’s muscular frame. Oh, this was just like old times, but perhaps better for the long break he had taken. Sam breathed in deeply, cherishing the smell of the clear air, soon to be filled with smoke and ash.

 

The majority of the gas went to the motel’s check-in room, the place where there were most likely to be traces of the Winchesters. Sam grinned as his brother poured gasoline over the counter, the floor, the body of the manager; he moved to the other rooms contained in the small lobby of the motel, not concerned about saving fuel for the guest’s rooms. Those did not need to burn, though it would be beautiful if they did.

 

The rooms saturated, Sam met Dean at the front of the hotel. “You ready?” he asked, smiling innocently down at his older brother, grinning as he laughed.

 

“Always ready to kill with you, Sammy,” Dean replied, placing a hand possessively on the back of Sam’s neck. “Now let’s go before anyone comes out and we have to kill witnesses in public, okay?”

 

Sam smirked, turning and walking away from his brother, leaving Dean to follow him. He passed over the first several rooms, before he spotted one that was clearly occupied. He turned his head to wink at Dean, and kicked the door open, the cheap wood splintering and nearly flying off its hinges.

 

The elderly couple barely had time to scream before Sam opened fire, shooting the old man three times before taking out his wife. He stood by the door as Dean picked up a towel and used it to carefully, without touching anything, go through the couples’ pockets and the lady’s purse. “Not much, but it’s something,” he said with a shrug, looking up at Sam with blood-crazed eyes. Sam wanted nothing more than to throw him down and smear the blood all over his face, but he restrained himself; they were making an effort to not leave DNA at the scene, after all. “Hopefully the next room will have better pickings.”

 

Sam could not bring himself to care about the money. The sight of the couple, beautifully dead and covered in dark, rich blood, his brother crouched amongst their remains—that was worth more than any amount of money to him. Still, hitting more rooms meant more kills, and after his stint at living by the law—well, to a certain degree at least—he was itching to kill again. Four years without a single proper body to add to his count had left Sam wanting more than he could have possibly realized. He nodded, unable to find words, and lead the way out of the crumbling room to the next door that showed signs of habitation. Three rooms later, and he was starting to get itchy; he would love to continue killing, but someone could call the cops any minute.

 

“We should go, Dean,” he said reluctantly, touching his brother’s shoulder with a bloody hand. Dean nodded, rising from the pile of bodies—three teenagers and their father, a man who had carried a surprising amount of money for someone who had picked such a run-down motel to stay in—and followed Sam out the door, back to the front of the motel. He tossed the towel into the lobby and backed up, gesturing Sam away from the doors. Sam backed away to stand by the car, watching hungrily as Dean struck a match, backed away, and threw it with all his might. Dean bolted as the match made contact with the gasoline soaked floor, the hotel lighting up faster than Sam would have thought was possible.

 

“Shit shit shit fuck shit!” Dean shouted, sprinting towards the car. Sam threw himself into the passenger’s seat as Dean wrenched the door open and leapt with equal vigor into the driver’s seat. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!” he yelled with a whoop, slamming the car into reverse and pulling out of the parking lot so sharply that Sam’s head knocked against the window.

 

“Man,” Sam said, laughing, as they finally pulled safely onto the highway. “That was fantastic. Damn I’ve missed this! We should do it more often.”

 

Dean chuckled as though amused by his brother’s enthusiasm. “You always said that, Sam,” he laughed, turning the music up as he sped along several miles over the speed limit. Why bother caring about traffic cops when they died just as easily as everyone else? “Nice to know that some things never change.”

 

Sam snickered, mulling Dean’s words over in his head. “Yeah, well, did you expect that to?”

 

“Honestly? Yes,” Dean said, speeding up to pass the car in the lane next to them. “Dad and I figured you’d gone soft. Wanted out because you were done killing and living on the wrong side of the law. He was livid that you’d gone straight after all these years, and honestly, I was pretty disappointed too. Never been so happy to be proven wrong!”

 

Sam snorted. “I was never done killing,” he said, laughing cruelly. “I just figured it would be safer to do it legally. Put everyone I could on death row and laugh as they got executed. It’s not the same rush as this, but it seemed like it would be close enough.”

 

Dean’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the steering wheel. “Well, was it?” he asked finally, voice barely audible over the pounding, encompassing beat of AC/DC.

 

Sam sighed, loathe to answer. “No,” he replied finally, tossing his brother a begrudging look. “No, it wasn’t the enough at all. The biggest rush I got wasn’t in learning how to get criminals killed, it was killing my customers when they were assholes, and even then, it, how do I put this,” he said, grinning at his brother. “It lacked a certain charm. It always does when they’re guilty. It’s not the same feeling at all.”

 

Dean laughed gleefully. “Dad owes me a grand, when we find him,” he said, eyes sparkling with delight. “He bet that you’d gone soft all around. I said that you still had something left in you. Turns out you’ve still got the whole package, so he’s got to pay double stakes!”

 

“That’s good?” Sam replied, slightly perturbed. His Dad had made it perfectly clear, when he tried to kill him, that he had not approved of Sam going to Stanford, but Sam would have never dreamed that his father would ever think that he had lost taste for his old life completely. He supposed he would have to rub it in his Dad’s face when they found him. “Speaking of Dad, find any leads?” he asked, determined to change the subject.

 

Dean shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Nothing that seems like Dad’s style,” he said regretfully. “A few murders and robberies, but if Dad’s done anything recently, it hasn’t made the news. Police records have anything?”

 

Sam hesitated. “Well, there’s a Winchester in prison in Kentucky,” he said slowly, “trial pending. No first name listed, but it could be Dad. Charges are double homicide and fleeing arrest. If it is Dad, and they link him back to the thing in Seattle, things aren’t going to end well.” He was reluctant to dash Dean’s hopes that their father was still out there, and to be fair, Sam had trouble seeing his father go as far east as Kentucky, but if he was truly worried about being caught for his crimes in Washington, he might have gone that far. “Think we ought to check it out?”

 

Dean nodded tersely. “Well, it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a lead. Find out who arrested the guy?”

 

“I can,” Sam replied calmly, bloodlust stirring in spite of himself at the look on Dean’s face. So strong, so determined, so thirsty for blood and vengeance—he wanted to rip his brother to shreds on the spot. He gripped the edge of his seat, fighting down the urge—not Dean, never Dean, Dean was one of the only people he could never kill.

 

“Good,” Dean replied, eyes still fixed on the road. “Then we’ll go to Kentucky and check into this. If it is Dad in prison, we’ll bust him out and give those police officers a night they’d never forget, if we were going to let them live through it.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Dean picked his way through the bloodied remains of the gas station clerk, chuckling at the feral look on his brother’s bloodstained face. “Really, Sammy? I leave you alone for ten minutes to fill up the car and you hack our poor dear employee of the month to shreds?” he said teasingly, patting his brother’s blood-matted hair. A clump of skin slid off it, onto the sticky floor.

 

“There’s a hose out back,” Sam said with a shrug. “I’m not going to mess up your car, so I figured hey, the security cameras are out and no one else is here, what harm could it do?”

 

Dean chuckled, grabbing his brother’s chin and tilting his head, admiring the contrast of the rich, red blood with Sam’s tanned, slightly rough skin. “I just can’t take you anywhere, can I?” he half-cooed, swiping his hand across the blood on Sam’s face. “Okay. Get yourself cleaned up while I liberate the money and replenish our food stock, got it?”

 

Sam nodded, face deceptively innocent, beautiful while streaked in blood. It was a shame that Sam had to clean up; were it not for the possibility of running into the authorities on the road, Dean would have thought about putting down a tarp and ordering his brother to ride alongside him while smeared in the remains of his kill. It was impractical, though. Reluctantly, Dean let his hands fall away from Sam’s face and turned to the cash register, pocketing the contents and wiping down the machine with a paper towel, which he then pocketed. Taking a few more towels with him, he wandered the aisles, stuffing food and water and alcohol into a plastic bag from behind the counter. They would be set for a while now, and all without having to drop a penny. It had not been Dean’s plan, but he appreciated Sam’s initiative in the matter almost as much as he appreciated the sight of his brother smeared with gore.

 

Sam was clean and waiting for him in the car by the time he walked outside. Dean made a brief stop at the hose to wash away the blood from his hands and the soles of his boots; he carefully burned the paper towels that he had used to touch the contents of the store, and strode back over to the car, feeling drunk on power and delight in his little brother. “Nice going back there, Sammy,” he chuckled, settling into the driver’s seat. “Now, where to from here? We’re about a day’s drive from the edge of Kentucky, unless my map is completely off. Want to keep going, or crash somewhere?”

 

Sam blinked at him. “It’s been a while since I dismembered anyone,” he said, smiling contentedly. “I’m tired. Let’s drive until we hit a motel a decent ways away and get a room.”

 

Dean laughed. “Okay, we’ll do that then. We’re going to drive around town a while before that though—have us check in at a time that would have us far away from this place at the time of the killing, just in case.” Ordinarily, that tactic would have been obvious to Sam, but considering how long the boy had been away from the family, Dean did not trust that he still remembered to cover all the details in his killings. Best to ensure that he remembered them now, in case Dean was ever in a position where he could not take charge of the cover-up situation.

 

“I haven’t been gone for that long, Dean,” Sam said, yawning until his jaw cracked with the strain. “Now shut your cake-hole and drive.”

 

Dean grinned. “Good to know, Sammy. Good to know.” He drove until the beginnings of exhaustion began to creep through his body, making him feel dangerously close to nodding off. That in itself was an adrenaline rush, but Dean had driven exhausted enough times to know that the charm wore off when he lost the ability to tell how far in front of him the other cars were. He turned the car around, glad for the empty road—it made the whole operation so much simpler—and retraced his route, stopping at a motel an hour away from the point where he had started to feel impaired.

 

Sam woke just long enough for Dean to get them checked in, this time under the alias James Hendricks. They did not speak when they reached the room, but rather collapsed onto their separate beds, drained and ready for sleep before continuing their search.

 

Dean was glad that Sam was still asleep when he woke up, nearly ten hours later. He loved his brother and would never begrudge him the joys of killing, but he was itching to get on the road without having to take the time to clean up after another murder. “Wake up, Sam,” he called, tossing his pillow at his sleeping brother. The pillow missed, falling dejectedly to the floor, and Sam stirred but did not wake. Shaking his head, Dean rose and walked the few feet to his brother’s bed, shoving him roughly. “You cannot possibly be more tired than me. You slept in the car!” he shouted, by way of a greeting.

 

Sam groaned and slapped out instinctively with his arm. Dean did not even bother dodging the weak blow. “Come on, princess, rise and shine,” he called, ripping the blankets away to expose his brother, still fully clothed down to his shoes. “Got a Winchester to track down and possibly some heads to smash.”

 

Sam grumbled and sat up, blinking wearily. “You couldn’t have waited one more hour?” he demanded, rubbing his eyes. “Fuck you, man. I hope someone in the prison takes a liking to you and kidnaps your ass.”

 

“More likely to happen to you than me, pretty boy,” Dean chortled, slapping his brother on the back. Sam shot him a dirty look and half-tumbled out of bed, disheveled and clearly still sleepy. Dean loved teasing his brother—it was all too easy, really. The man took offense at so many things!

 

They were silent through the car ride until they stopped for lunch at a cheap, greasy diner. Dean shook his head in derision at Sam’s chicken salad, wolfing down a gloriously rare and juicy cheeseburger himself. The pie could use some work, he mused, gnawing on the dry, crumbly crust, but he’d had worse—this one wasn’t bad enough for him to murder the chef, at least.

 

Finishing his food, he swallowed hard, grinning unabashed at Sam, who had been tapping his fingers impatiently for the better part of ten minutes. “What’s eating you, Sammy boy?” he asked boisterously, leaning back in his seat with a contented sigh.

 

“It’s all these people,” Sam murmured, glancing quickly around the diner. “We could take them out. I _want_ to take them out, Dean. It’s driving me crazy—they’re such sloppy, lazy, easy pickings. Can we—”

 

“No,” Dean said firmly, cutting off the question before it could finish leaving his brother’s mouth. “Absolutely not. A, daylight. B, not enough ammo right now. C, we’re getting pretty close to Kentucky, where if you recall, we’re going to have to get into a prison without being questioned. That’s not going to happen if our faces are all over the five-o’ clock news for shooting up an unsecured location.” He reached across the table to pat his clearly frustrated brother on the hand. “Cheer up, Hannibal, we’ll hit some place after we figure out if this Winchester is Dad, okay?”

 

Sam shot him a glare. “I don’t eat the people I kill,” he retorted softly, un-amused by Dean’s references. “I suppose I could give it a try, but it seems pretty unsanitary to me. People are disgusting.”

 

“Got that one right,” Dean replied cheerfully, pleased by his brother’s comeback. “Come on, let’s hit the road again. The sooner we check out this prison, the sooner you can get your rocks off over some dead bodies.”

 

Sam smirked. “That’s a great way of putting it Dean. Really classy,” he said, pushing himself away from the table with a sigh. He hesitated, and then slapped some money down on the table, mouth twisting in a reluctant grimace. “Guess if we’re trying to be inconspicuous we’d better pay our tab,” he muttered, looking almost sadly at the money.

 

“Eh, we’ll make it all back,” Dean said cheerfully, clapping Sam on the shoulder and steering him out to the car to continue their journey.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Several tables away from where the two men had been sitting, a trench-coat clad man with piercing blue eyes and messy black hair pulled his cell phone unobtrusively out of his pocket. He knew that the two men had not expected to be overheard, but Jimmy Novak had always had fantastic hearing, or had at least for as long as he could remember, which, granted, only spanned five years. Still, five years of memory, and three years in the FBI left him with a clear grasp of the situation. He waited a few minutes until he could be sure that the men were safely gone—he was off the clock, and not supposed to tail suspects without backup—before he stepped outside and half-ran to his car, dialing his partner along the way. “Henriksen,” he panted as his partner picked up.

 

“Novak?” Henriksen sounded surprised—Jimmy rarely called when he was off the clock. “Something happen?”

 

“Overheard two men at a diner. They were talking about murders and possibly shooting up the place.” Jimmy strapped himself into his seat, reversing the car and taking the wheel with one hand, holding the phone flat to his ear with the other. “They’re headed to Kentucky, to sneak into a prison. We should alert the cops in the area, tell them to keep an eye out for something fishy.”

 

Henriksen exhaled loudly. “Novak, we can’t arrest them without proof of wrongdoing, you know,” he reminded his young, overeager partner.

 

“I know,” Jimmy replied, speeding down the highway towards his partner’s house. “I still think it would be a good idea to put the cops on alert for these two. Something in the way they talked about it made me think they’re serious about killing people.”

 

“Well, there has been a record increase in murders following a similar MO across the mid-west over the past decade, but Kentucky seems a little far east to fit the profile.” There was a slight scuffing sound over the phone. “Still, these might be our guys. Got a description?”

 

“Not much of one,” Jimmy admitted. “Didn’t want to attract attention to myself by staring. Both men, both tall, the taller one had brown hair and I think the shorter one was blond.”

 

“Not much to go on, Novak,” Henriksen said, though there was no real exasperation in his voice. “Hey. You did good in calling me. I’ll put the word out to all the districts in Kentucky that have prisons, see what shows up. Meet me at headquarters as soon as you can get there, got it?”

 

“Yeah, I got it,” Jimmy said, hanging up without a good-bye. Their last investigation had had them both in Ohio, working out of a temporary headquarters in Henriksen’s basement—they were lucky that his partner had a house in the area, considering that the local police force was a pain in the ass about giving out room space, even though the force had been the ones to call them in. It was even luckier now—they did not have a reason to use the police force’s building for a potential crime, not even something with proof or a body count, outside of the district, and Jimmy did not trust his hotel room to be secure enough for a meeting of this nature.

 

He parked a block away from the house and walked, unlocking the door with the spare key Henriksen had made for him. He locked the door behind him and headed down to the basement, where his partner waited with a computer and a tape recorder. “Can you remember everything they said?”

 

“Yes,” Jimmy replied. Perhaps it was the amnesia that kept him from remembering everything before the last five years, but since then, he had developed a knack for remembering everything, down to the most minute of details, that happened around him. He sat, and began his work repeating everything he had heard, the keys clacking away as his partner typed out the evidence.


	4. Rubble and Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean find their father, who presents them with a disturbing request. The FBI begins to take notice of their crimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still accepting thoughts, criticisms, compliments, and insults. I would still count this chapter as practically exposition (whoo, slow-building plot, damn this is frustrating) but at least there's some action.  
> For all those who were lured here by the promise of twisted, depraved smut, this is the last chapter you will have to go before the first scene of many.

Sam fidgeted awkwardly, tugging at the brisk fabric of his freshly purchased suit. “Refresh me on who we are again?” he asked, shooting his brother a questioning look.

 

“John McCartney and Paul Lennon,” Dean replied, adjusting his own tie. “We’re pre-law students from the University of Ohio. Bobby found someone to fix us up some transcripts, and any calls made from any police station in Kentucky to the school will re-route straight to his phone. Gotta love Ash for things like that,” he said, grinning. “We’re here on an independent study project to interview incarcerated people before their trials, and Winchester was one of the ones we picked. Got a note from the Dean of Students explaining our project in case anyone asks.” He pulled out an official looking letter, emailed to Dean’s computer that morning, the forged signature identical to the Dean’s real mark. “You’re Paul, I’m John. Have a driver’s license,” he added, tossing a small plastic card to Sam, who caught it effortlessly. “All set and ready to go?” he asked, jamming his hands into his suit pockets.

 

“Don’t wreck your suit,” Sam replied. He was nervous, as much as he hated to admit it. It was no big deal if it was a bust; he had been a pre-law student, after all, and he could fake a legitimate pre-law project proposal in his sleep, but if the man they were there to see was actually his father… Well, the last time he had seen the man, he had nearly ended up dead. Sam would be lying if he said that did not put a damper on his enthusiasm to see the man face to face.

 

“All right, then. Let’s hit the road!” Dean grabbed the keys to the Impala from the small bedside table in the hotel room—an actual hotel, more fitting for a pair of college students with parents to pay their tuition, the two had decided. They’d make the money up somehow—Sam was voting for more murder and burning, although Dean was strangely resistant to that idea.

 

The hotel was not far from the prison in which Winchester was being held. Sam gritted his teeth as they were searched, making a mental note to come back and slaughter the security guards at his first opportunity. The only people who got to touch him were family and paying customers—it did not matter that the once-over was purely business-like and just a part of the man’s job; his touch was still offensive and irritating to Sam.

 

The warden, a short, tough looking woman, asked them surprisingly few questions before directing them to a visiting room, all bullet-proof glass and dented black corded phones. “We’ll have him out in a couple of minutes,” was all she said, before retreating and leaving the two alone, sitting awkwardly on stools, and waiting for the prisoner to emerge. Sam clenched his hands. _Please don’t be Dad, please don’t be Dad, please don’t be Dad_ he chanted in his head, grinding his teeth together slightly with impatience.

 

He seemed shrunken, uncharacteristically cowed as a guard led him out, but the Winchester in question was most definitely their father. He heard Dean inhale sharply through his teeth, and kicked him lightly. “Mister Winchester?” he said, doing his best to keep his voice strictly professional, and if he wavered a bit, well, as far as the guards knew, he was a pampered college student here to interview the first criminal he had ever met. “My name is Paul Lennon, and this is my project partner, John McCartney. We’re here to ask you some questions for a project.”

 

John Winchester looked up, his eyes flashing in recognition. He studied Sam’s face, and then Dean’s, a delighted look crossing his tough features. “Well, well, well. Law students, I presume?” he asked, shooting Sam a knowing look.

 

Sam was surprised to realize that he wanted to laugh at the recognition. Seeing his father was far less painful than he had thought it would be. “Yes. We’re working on a project, if you could answer some questions for us?” The whole thing was ridiculous, but Sam knew that they could not risk talking openly to the man.

 

“Yeah, yeah, sure kid. What do you guys want to know?” John asked flippantly, ever the perfect actor of apathy.

 

Dean butted in. “Well, for starters, you’re here on charges of a double homicide. Are you pleading innocent or guilty, or insanity at your trial?”

 

John snorted, rolling his eyes indignantly. “Kid, I’m not going to trial. I’m not sitting through some pansy university judge telling me I did wrong and I need to die for my crimes. I’m going to go out on my own terms, straight enough answer for you?”

 

Sam swallowed hard, reminding himself to keep it impersonal just in case anyone was watching. “Right, well, if you do make it to trial, what are you going to plead?” he asked, keeping his voice as neutral and calm as possible. He clenched his hands under the table; his father was not going to commit suicide, not on his watch.

 

John laughed, a sharp bark of a noise. “Guilty, son,” he said, spreading his arms wide, carelessly. “Guilty as the devil himself. I’ve got nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. So I took a couple of bastards out; who hasn’t wanted to do that from time to time?” He leaned forward, carefully meeting first Sam’s eyes, and then Dean’s. “Of course, I’ve always wanted to go out with a bang, so nothing would make me happier than to see the whole prison go boom with me. But I guess that’s not going to happen. Not like I’ll have a couple of kids who know how to make bombs march in here and take my last wishes to heart.”

 

Sam swallowed hard. “Yes, that would be rather unrealistic, Mr. Winchester,” he said, nodding imperceptibly. Dean shot him a horrified look, to which Sam replied by kicking him again. “All right, well, you said that you wanted to kill your victims. Why? Did they provoke you?”

 

“Provoke, exist, same thing,” John replied, leaning back, noticeably more relaxed now. “Out there being a happy little friend set, walking a dog and gossiping, makes me sick just to think about it. Other people, they think the world is nice and shiny, all dogs and friends and giggling over some jackass at work making a fool of himself asking some chick out. I just taught them that the world isn’t so happy and shiny, and now they know.”

 

Dean nodded carefully. “So, um, have you always wanted to kill happy people?” he asked, clearly scrabbling to think up a question. Sam sighed; his brother could have phrased it worse, at least.

 

John laughed, clearly finding the situation amusing. Sam would have too, were it not for the request his father had made of them. “Boy, I’ve been killing since you were in pull-ups,” he chuckled, grinning at his oldest son. “I’ve never regretted a single kill, not one. Took my whore wife out first, and never looked back. Skanky bitch had the audacity to have another guy over while I was in the house with my kids; looks like even when you think you’re happy you’re being stabbed in the back.” John leaned forward again, smirking. “You got the info you need?” he asked, staring into Dean’s eyes.

 

Dean swallowed hard. Sam knew that convincing him to comply with their father’s wishes was going to be a job and a half. “Yes sir,” he said, rising from the chair and throwing his father one last pleading look.

 

John waved at them. “Bye-bye you two! Guess I’ll be saying hi to my boys from the afterlife pretty soon, so I’m glad you came when you did.” He winked at the two of them, before turning and heading to the door at the back of the room, banging on it. Without the phones, Sam could not hear what he was saying, but if he knew his father, it was laced with profanities and insults directed at the guard outside.

 

Sam and Dean were silent as they walked back to the car. Wordlessly, Sam slipped the keys from his brother’s hand, motioning him towards the passenger seat. Surprisingly, Dean did not protest, slipping in to the car and sitting quietly, face blank and pale.

 

"Dean, you know we have to do this,” Sam said once they were safely on the road. “Dad doesn’t want to go to trial; he said so himself. At least this way he gets to go out in a blaze of glory instead of hanging himself in his cell like some kind of haunted man.”

 

“Shut it, Sam,” Dean replied tersely, face grim. “I’m having enough trouble wrapping my head around this without you preaching at me.”

 

Sam considered answering him with something scathing, but elected to keep his mouth shut. He could not blame his brother; Dean had always been their father’s perfect little soldier, ready to kill and steal and cover tracks at the slightest command, never deviating from their father’s plan. If Sam had to guess, he would bet that the search for their Dad was the first trip Dean had taken without the man, and now they would never travel together again. Sam, on the other hand, was sorry that his father was about to die, but knew damn well that he could take care of himself without the man. He had done so for the past four years, after all.

 

Sam pulled off onto a side road and followed it until he reached a field next to a patch of woods. “Seems like a decent place to work,” he said. “I don’t trust the hotel room.”

 

Dean nodded grimly and hauled himself out of the Impala. Sam pulled open the trunk and began digging, looking for anything that he could think of to make explosives. “Well, it’s not going to be easy to take the whole prison out, but we should have enough if we work smart,” he determined finally, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair.

 

“Do you think there’s any way to take out most of the prison but leave Dad’s cell block?” Dean demanded, staring past the explosive materials scattered on the floor by the trees. “We could get him out, get him a new identity, maybe some plastic surgery so he won’t be recognized—”

 

“Dean,” Sam said firmly, cutting him off. “His fingerprints are on file. They have his DNA. We bust him out, it’s only a matter of time before the cops find him again, and us with him. We don’t have the resources to get him out of the country, so that’s not an option. Even if we did, all his connections are here, and he’d just get himself arrested again.”

 

“Jesus Sam, are you even going to try to save him?” Dean exploded, picking up a piece of pipe and hurling it at Sam, who ducked, letting the projectile soar harmlessly past his head.

 

“No,” Sam replied coldly, kneeling down to start sorting out the materials they had. God, this was so screwed up. He had not even considered the possibility that their father might not want to be rescued, when they found him. “Dad made his wishes clear. You’re the one who always said to listen to him no matter what, now shut up and listen. We are taking the whole place out, Dad with it, and I don’t want to hear you bitching anymore about it, get me?”

 

“You—”

 

Sam rose, stretching to his full height so that he towered over his brother. He walked over to him, calmly, coldly, hands shaking with the urge to grab his brother by the throat and squeeze until he begged. He reached out and grabbed his jacket instead, yanking Dean forward until their chests were almost touching. “Do. You. Get. Me?” he asked, staring down at his older brother, whose face slackened, reacting to the familiar tactic.

 

“I get you,” he mumbled, refusing to meet Sam’s eyes. Satisfied, Sam released his hold on Dean’s jacket and turned his attention back to the pile of soon to be explosives.

 

“Then let’s get busy. We’re going to make Dad’s death one the country will never forget.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

The streets were dark, quiet, and deserted as Sam and Dean drove up quietly, parking far enough away from the prison that the car would not be seen, but close enough that they could detonate the bombs from the safety of the Impala, eliminating risks to themselves. “This had better work,” Dean muttered, shouldering a heavy backpack stuffed with explosives and as much C4 as they had been able to lift from a nearby demolition site, carefully stalking the place until the workers went on break. “If we get caught or someone calls a bomb squad in time—”

 

“Don’t think about it,” as Sam’s answer. Dean scowled at his brother, annoyed with his nonchalance. He followed Sam to the back fence of the prison. “You be ready to shoot the guards if they see me,” he ordered, pulling two strips of leather out of his pocket and wrapping his hands tightly. He rubbed them together and jumped a few times, loosening his muscles. “All right,” he said, eyeing the ten foot tall chain-link fence, topped with particularly nasty looking barbed wire. “If I get this done without getting caught, I’m shooting the guards and going out the front gate,” he muttered, glaring at the obstacle. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for pain. “All right. Give me a boost,” he ordered, lifting his leg demandingly.

 

Sam cupped his hands under Dean’s boot and lifted as Dean jumped. Dean reached out and grabbed, barbed wire biting through the protective leather of his hand-wraps. “Son of a bitch!” Dean cursed, vaulting over the fence and releasing his grip in record time. He landed none too lightly on the dusty ground of the prison yard caught the second bag of C4 that Sam threw at him, grunting at the impact. He bolted, dashing to the building for cover, just in case the guards had heard him. He was going to have to work quickly.

 

Dean made it halfway around the building before he heard the tromp of boots behind him. He froze for a second, and the spun around, wrenching his gun out of its holster as he did so. “Howdy, officer,” he said with a smile, pulling the trigger before the man could reach his.

 

Well, they definitely knew someone was here by now. Dean worked as quickly as he could, sweat beading around his forehead as he stuck the C4 and home-made bombs in as hidden of locations as he could find. It was a good thing that they looked like junk, and that the guards would probably be looking for him and not explosives, but it was still troubling—if they found the bombs, the whole operation was off. He planted the last one around the perimeter and bolted, sprinting towards the gate, pulling out his phone and speed-dialing Sam. “No time to get to the car. Blow it!” he shouted.

 

“Dean, you’ll—”

 

“No names! And now!” he ordered, rushing at the closing gates. Two shots went off and the guards dropped; Dean mentally thanked Sam, breezing through the half-shut gates and tearing around the corner towards the parked car.

 

He was far enough away that the heat from the explosion did not hit him, but he still staggered as the ground beneath him rolled from the impact. Only two blocks—

 

Sam pulled the car around so fast that he nearly hit Dean. “Get in!” he shouted, flinging open the passenger door. Dean leapt in and slammed the door shut, turning around to look at his handiwork as soon as the door was closed.

 

Sam was driving too fast for him to get a good look, but the glimpse he caught was beautiful. Dean could not have set up a better chain reaction if he had had all the time and materials in the world, and an empty building to work with. The entire prison had collapsed in on itself, and fires burned in several places, sending smoke pluming into the sky. “No way anyone survived that,” he breathed, mentally patting himself on the back. “How did you manage to shoot the guards and blow the place so quickly?” he asked, staring at his brother in wonder.

 

“I brought the car around when I heard the first shot,” Sam said, shrugging. “Figured the jig was up and you’d have a better chance of getting out alive if I had the car ready and waiting. Glad I did too. It would have sucked to lose you as well as Dad in there.

 

That counted for affection amongst the Winchesters. “Aw, Sammy, you’re breaking my heart with your sweetness,” Dean cooed dramatically, throwing himself across the seat at his brother, making Sam swerve into the mercifully empty lane beside them.

 

“I’ll break it with my gun if you don’t get off me!” he shouted, shoving Dean away with one arm, but the shine of affection in his eyes betrayed his words. “Okay, on a serious note, we’re not stopping until we can get to Bobby’s and have some new registration records drawn up to match our new license plates. I’m not taking any chances with this. Rest up, Dean, you’ve got the next driving shift.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbled, leaning back the passenger seat until it was nearly flat. _Don’t think about how you just killed Dad._ “Wake me when you get tired and pissy, okay princess?”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

That drew a small smile from Dean. He shoved his jacket under his head and curled up, letting the familiar motion of the Impala slowly lull him to sleep.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Jimmy was almost asleep when he got the call. He bolted to his feet, away from semi-dreams of a strange looking man who called him ‘Castiel’ and touched his forehead. He hated that dream; it was a recurring vision that always made him feel dreadfully trapped and uncomfortable in his own skin. Shaking his head, trying to slough off the feeling, he picked up his phone. “Henriksen?” he asked blearily. “What happened?”

 

“Looks like you were right, Novak.” Henriksen’s tense voice rapped out loudly from the speaker. Castiel winced and moved the phone slightly away from his ear. “Either that or we’ve got a hell of a lot of strange coincidences going on. A prison in west Kentucky just blew up, and our guys found traces of C4 all around the site.”

 

Jimmy grabbed his coat off the floor beside his bed and pulled it on over his pajamas. “We get the call?” he demanded, jamming his bare feet into his work shoes by the door.

 

“Yeah, we got the call all right. Whoever did this was going for the kill. No survivors,” his partner said, voice grim, “not even the prisoners. Hell, half of them aren’t even going to be identifiable by their dental records, that’s how bad this set-up was.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Jimmy said, sprinting down the stairs to the bottom floor of his house, stopping to grab the ready-bag he always kept packed by the door. “Why would they make the effort to sneak into the prison if they were just going to blow it up?”

 

"Leave that to the behaviorists, Novak,” Henriksen advised. “Personally, I don’t give a damn why this guy did it, just that he did it, and a lot of people are dead.” He exhaled loudly; Jimmy ignored the annoying noise, tossing his bag into his work car and climbing in. “I’ll meet you at headquarters and brief you before we head out, but from what I understand there’s not much to tell. If these are the guys you heard a few days ago, they’re damn good. If it’s not, I want to know what the hell is so interesting about Kentucky’s prisons.”

 

“You and me both,” Jimmy replied, backing out of his driveway as quickly as he dared and turning on the emergency lights of his car. He sped out of the neighborhood, headed straight for the city, driving faster than he thought he had ever driven before. It still felt so slow. What happened to being able to zip in and out of places at the speed of light?

 

Jimmy frowned as he realized where his mind was. He could not allow himself to be taunted by the fancies and delusions that lingered at the back of his mind. He supposed he must have been a rather imaginative person before whatever had brought on his amnesia, for all the thoughts that constantly came to the forefront of his mind, unbidden. He shoved the idea down and focused on driving, surpassing the speed limit by a reckless percentage.

 

It still would have been faster to fly.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“So here’s what we’ve got, the whole folder of it.” Henriksen slapped a single, lonely folder onto the table, scowling in disgust at the lack of information. “We’ve got a list of prisoners, a list of guards on duty, a record of everyone who visited or was in the prison in the last ten years, and not much else. A demolitions crew in the area just happened to lose their C4 the night of the explosion, so we’ll look into people on the crew as well. They’ve got the remains of the explosives used to set off the C4 in the office in Kentucky, and some of their analysts are confirming that it did come from the demo crew, but apart from that, we’ve got jack-squat.” Henriksen glanced up at Jimmy. “Looks like this is gonna be nothing but one long grind. Our flight leaves in an hour if you want to get familiar with the names.”

 

"Yes, that sounds like a good plan,” Jimmy answered, sitting down and picking up the file. It really was scant on information. It took him much less than an hour to make his way down each list, retaining as much of the information as he could in his head. “Have you spoken to the police about where we should start when we get there?” he asked, cocking his head at Henriksen curiously.

 

“Yeah, they’re taking care of making the rounds of the surrounding neighborhoods. They want us to start tracking down the visitors, starting with the most recent, and question them. Guess they want us to hit the friends and families of the deceased as well, see if they had any smart-cookie enemies who could have pulled off a stunt like this.” Jimmy nodded; it was about what he had expected. “My guess is that if someone was after a prisoner or a guard, they’d be a new inmate or a recent hire, otherwise this would have happened already,” Henriksen continued, shaking his head. “You know, I’ve handled explosions before, but nothing on this scale, not yet. Whoever did this—it wasn’t their first time blowing up a building, I’ll bet.”

 

“Well, we can’t know that for certain,” Jimmy replied practically, closing the folder of names. “We should wait outside for the plane. There’s really not much else to do in here.”

 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Henriksen agreed, picking his jacket up off of the chair where he had tossed it. “Let’s go meet the plane, and sleep on it. We’re going to be up to our ears in questionings and paperwork once we get out there.”

 

Jimmy silently picked up his emergency bag and lead the way outside, climbing into the backseat of the car prepared to take the two of them to the runway. He knew this case was important; if the perpetrator had blown up a prison, who knew what else he or she was capable of doing?

 

Still, Jimmy could not shake the feeling inside him that screamed that this was a terrible plan, to run and hide and never look back. He hoped that he and Henriksen could be helpful to the investigation, but a small, cowardly part of him hoped that he would not have to meet the perpetrators face to face. There was a niggling sense in the back of his brain, one that told him that a run-in with the perpetrators would leave him begging for death.

 

 


	5. Bloodlust and Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam suggests some stress relief to help pull Dean out of his funk; Dean takes Sam to task for their father's death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no such place as Hogan's Hot House, unless Google lied to me, in which case, my most sincere apologies and I wish no violence upon your establishment.
> 
> Apparently there's no time like after the dishes have been finished to have torturous, one-sided sex with dubious consent. Yes, this chapter has a sex scene, though it's not a long, drawn-out porn extravaganza. Considering that I do not have a penis and have not interacted with them in quite the same way as the boys in this story will, criticism of the sex scenes is greatly appreciated.

When the rush of the successful bombing had worn off, Dean found it hard to concentrate. The idea that he had killed his own father kept running through his head, worrying at his psyche, popping up through every attempt he made to distract himself. His father had been his lifeline, the one constant in his life after Sam had left—no, not left, _abandoned_ —the family for college. Oh, he tried to forget—he restocked their explosives materials, replenished their collection of ammo, fine-tuned the Impala and cleaned and waxed her until his hands were raw, even tried sitting on Bobby’s couch watching mindless cartoons until the man was fed up with his antics and threw him out to “find a distraction and grow up, you idjit.” Nothing seemed to help. Dean growled, walking along the perimeter of Bobby’s property, kicking at the few rocks that he had not already sent skittering out of range. Maybe he could sweet-talk Bobby into letting him work on some of the busted, rusted old cars in his lot. True, the man had not seemed very receptive towards allowing Dean to touch the cars when he first arrived, a shaking, grieving mess, but it had been almost two weeks! Maybe Bobby would change his mind if it kept Dean from filling up the house with Ren and Stimpy.

 

The footsteps behind him were too far apart to be Bobby’s. “What do you want, Sam?” Dean asked, not bothering to turn around. He had barely spoken a word to his brother since the adrenaline rush of the bombing had worn off. Sure, he had been the one to place the C4, but Sam was the one who had pressed the issue of honoring their father’s wishes—of murdering him. Dad hadn’t been a person, he had been Dad! His life had mattered where others had not, and Dean had killed him like he was just any other person, and if he was pushing the blame off onto Sam, well, he figured that he owed himself that comfort, at least.

 

“Stop avoiding me.” Sam’s words were quick, spoken in a no-nonsense tone. “Look, I get it. You blame me for Dad’s death. Yeah, I’ll admit, I was the one who said we should blow the place, but damnit, he asked us to! Now man the fuck up, we’re going on a spree.”

 

Dean stopped and shot Sam an incredulous look. “We’re supposed to lay low until this blows over,” he said accusingly, glaring at Sam. “I don’t know about you, but I saw a report on the prison just two nights ago on the news. They’ve got the FBI after us man! Now’s not the time to go on a spree!”

 

“Yeah, well, tough,” Sam said, folding his arms over his lean, muscular chest. “Dean. You’ve got to stop wasting away around here. You’re killing yourself, and I meant it when I said that I don’t want you dead. You, Bobby—you guys and the Roadhouse crew are the only people I want to let live, and you’re doing a damn good job trying to thwart me from keeping you alive. I’ve already stolen two fucking cars from several cities over, which I’d guess you didn’t notice while you were off moping and watching cartoons like a fucking seven year old who got a blue bike instead of a red one for his birthday.”

 

“Your metaphors suck,” Dean muttered half-heartedly.

 

“Similies.”

 

“Bitch.”

 

“Jerk.”

 

Dean sighed. Damnit, Sam was too good at winning him over when he tried. He had to admit that a spree sounded like a fantastic idea at the moment. That would be just the thing to clear his mind and get his head back where it belonged—playing with fire and dancing around the law. “Fine, we can go on a spree,” he grumbled, unwilling to let Sam win too easily. “Got anywhere specific in mind, or are we just pulling up to a random gas station?”

 

Sam grinned, eyes lighting up with a dark glint. “Better get your ski mask, brother,” he advised, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. “We’re gonna hit Hogan’s.”

 

“Hogan’s Hot House?” Dean said with disbelief. “You want to shoot up Dad’s favorite restaurant.”

 

Sam shrugged. “Dad’s never going to eat there again. Besides, it would be a great tribute to his memory to go to his favorite places and wipe out all the people who are still there enjoying it when he can’t, don’t you think?”

 

Dean chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. Sam had a point. Their dad would probably have delighted in knowing that the first kill they made after they blew up the prison and killed him was a tribute to his memory at one of his favorite places in the world. “Okay, you’ve got me convinced,” he said, shrugging. “You’re right about the ski masks, though. Too many people there know our faces.” He scowled. “Man, I’m gonna need to put lifts in my shoes too, aren’t I?” he asked, grimacing.

 

“Suck it up. Makes me look shorter and us both look closer in height,” Sam said, smirking. “So, here’s the plan. We’re both going to put on non-descript clothing and wear ski-masks. We’re going to drive the cars I took separately out to the next town over, and then take one to shoot the place up. When we’ve finished, we’ll take that car, go back to the other car, take both cars over to the next town, and then take the car we left back to Bobby’s. Then we’ll use the Impala to separate again and ditch that car a few towns over in the other direction.”

 

“So in other words, ‘use the bathroom now Dean, we’re going to be driving all day.’ Yeah, I see how that is Sammy.” Dean made a face at him, but knew that his amusement showed through in his eyes. “Fine, but I lead. You always run red lights when you make me follow.”

 

“Lies and slander,” Sam retorted, heading back to the house. Dean followed him into the guest room, where Sam had taken the liberty of laying out two black, long-sleeved shirts and two pairs of dark sweatpants that Dean had never seen before.

 

“You go thrift shopping?” he asked, stripping down to his boxers and settling on one of the shirts. He pulled it over his head and slid the sweatpants over his narrow hips, before kneeling to look under the bed for his shoe lifts.

 

“Yeah, shopping. We’ll go with that,” Sam replied, stripping off his own clothing, his torso several shades paler than his arms, evidence to the amount of time he had spent outside looking for those cars, Dean guessed. The shirt sleeves did not quite touch his wrists, and the sweatpants showed just a little much ankle, but with a ski mask, the effect would be suitably intimidating. Dean shook his head; other people were so easy to frighten, if black clothing and a covered face could scare them before a gun was even drawn.

 

With the shoe lifts placed in his thick black boots, Dean nearly matched Sam in height. His brother pulled on boots of his own and tossed a ski-mask at Dean, who caught it easily. “Let’s get the automatics from the car and get going,” he said, grinning at his little brother.

 

Dean had to cram himself into the cramped little yellow Volvo, a tight fit even with the seat shoved all the way back. “Damnit Sam, couldn’t have picked a real car?” he muttered, fumbling to reach the car’s controls. He guided the rickety little thing off of Bobby’s property and sped off down the open road, the feeling not nearly as fine and comfortable as it would have been had he been in the Impala, an unfortunately distinctive car.

 

It was an hour’s drive to the town closest to the restaurant. Dean parked the car in an abandoned back lot—praise his father for having taught him to spot abandoned but unobtrusive parking places—and exited the car, stretching gratefully. He did not pull his automatic out of the car just yet—that would be difficult to explain if anyone walked by, and he would rather not waste bullets on some random passerby, who was not guaranteed to get close enough for him to snap his or her neck.

 

Sam pulled in behind him a moment later, perfectly ordinary and inconspicuous in a beige colored sedan—the type of car that no one would give a second glance to on the road. Dean glanced around, and then grabbed his gun, slamming and locking the door to the Volvo and sliding into the passenger’s seat of Sam’s vehicle. “I’ll have your ass for giving me such a cramped piece of shit car,” he muttered, glaring at his brother and slipping his gun under a casually placed tarp on the floor of the backseat of the car, next to Sam’s. “If these go off while you’re driving, that’s not all I’ll have,” he warned.

 

“They won’t go off,” Sam replied casually, driving nonchalantly out of the old lot, merging seamlessly back onto the road. Dean shook his head, casting the occasional glance back at the weapons.

 

The drive seemed to drag on for hours, even though Dean knew it could not have lasted longer than forty-five minutes. He was tense, jittery—he had not pulled off a kill this risky in years, and never without his father by his side, directing him and covering for him. Sam was good and all, but he got too caught up in the killing to actually be of any help in keeping a look-out for anyone who might slip away, or come in behind them. Dean shook his head, steeling his nerves. Dad was gone, and there was no bringing him back; it was time to honor his memory and prove that he could handle himself without his father.

 

Sam parked right up against the building and ducked down to roll his ski mask over his face. Dean followed suit, and reached back to the backseat to grab his gun, hard and comforting in his hand. “Ready to go shoot some pretentious sons of bitches?” he asked, watching as Sam reached back to pick up his own gun, long torso arching elegantly with the movement.

 

“Always am,” Sam replied, positively cheerful.

 

“Awesome. Remember to watch your back, and mine too. Don’t want anything getting out of hand,” he replied, exiting the car and slamming the door behind him, Sam following closely behind him as he strode powerfully to the door of the restaurant.

 

Dean threw out an arm, directing his brother to stop, and kicked open the door theatrically. “Everyone up!” he shouted into the single room of the cheap diner, striding in, gun at the ready. Sam followed, arms clearly tense under his shirt—eagerness, no doubt. Dean took a moment to admire the shock and terror that graced every face in the suddenly silent room. “I am not fucking joking, everyone stand the fuck up!” he roared, laughing inwardly at the shrieks and whimpers that came from several of the customers, most of whom stumbled to their feet. Dean grinned, savoring the rush of power that coursed through his body. Gun still trained on the diners, he jerked his head at Sam. “Round them up into the kitchen,” he ordered, advancing on the few diners who remained stubbornly in their seats. “Last warning. Stand the fuck up or I start shooting,” he ordered, as Sam shouted and gestured the terrified crowd into the kitchen area. 

 

“No,” an old woman said stubbornly, her accented voice regal and stern. Dean’s head snapped around; this crazy broad thought that there was something to be gained in defying him? “I didn’t come all the way to this country to be ordered about by a bully with—”

 

Dean opened fire, gunning down the old woman and the defiant customers still sitting near her. The others shrieked and stood, some running to join the group being herded into the kitchen, others struggling to reach the back door. Dean casually blew through the would-be escapees, marveling at the power of automatic weapons. Black market connections had some damn good purposes; he would have to find an excuse to send flowers to the Roadhouse soon. The stragglers dead, Dean took a moment to take in the scene before heading to the kitchen to meet up with Sam.

 

A good thirty customers and ten staff members stood, trembling in the kitchen under Sam’s predatory gaze. “How do you want to handle this?” his younger brother asked eagerly, hands shaking with anticipation. “Just go for it, or what?”

 

“I think we can show a little bit of mercy,” Dean grinned, eyes lighting on a young woman who stood at the back, clutching a child barely out of infancy to her chest. “Hey there princess, how about you hand over the kid?” he called, shoving people out of the way and striding over to the woman. “Don’t want your spawn getting caught up in anything messy now, do you?”

           

The young woman whimpered, her dark brown eyes wide, terrified. “Please,” she whispered, tightening her grip on the child, who fussed at the pressure. “Please, please don’t hurt her, she’s not even one—”

 

Dean backhanded the woman, who fell limply to the ground. “Hand over the kid, sweetheart. I don’t like having to ask you twice,” he growled, wrenching the child out of her arms. He strode back over to Sam, and nodded at his brother. “All yours. I’ll pick up the stragglers.” He caught the flash of delight in Sam’s eyes before heading out of the room, placing the child on the table as Sam opened fire, the screams of the dying prisoners echoing throughout the confined space.

 

Dean knew that it would be only moments before the police arrived; he would have to work quickly. He grabbed a sharpie from the hostess’s counter and quickly scrawled “we showed mercy” on the baby’s forehead, taking care to write in sloppy cursive very different from his ordinary handwriting. “Pack it up, we’ve got two minutes tops to get out of here!” he shouted at Sam as the gunfire ended. He strode out to the car and slammed the door, his brother arriving quickly behind him. Sam tossed his gun into the back and Dean followed suit, leaning over to cover the weapons with a tarp as Sam shrugged on a bright jacket and tossed his ski mask in the back. Dean pulled his own mask off and covered the masks with the weapons, before shrugging on a bright jacket of his own, pleased that Sam had thought that far ahead—he certainly had not. Boots came off as Sam drove, followed by sweatpants that he replaced with acid-washed jeans, slightly too long for him. He buried the sweats with the guns and went to work lacing his boots up again.

 

“We did good back there,” Sam crowed, speeding onto the highway. “Either no one in the area thought to call the cops, or their police force needs to get their ass in gear. I didn’t even hear sirens as we were leaving, much less before!”

 

“Yeah, well, still have to be pretty careful for the time being,” Dean said, glancing out the back window. It did not look like they were being followed, but it would still be a good idea to check periodically. “Man, I’m starving. Let’s finish the business of ditching these cars and get back to Bobby’s.”

 

“Always so practical,” Sam laughed, throwing his brother a mocking glance before turning his attention back to the road. “Take some time to live a little! Enjoy the moment!”

 

The words snapped something inside of Dean. “Practical? Enjoy the moment? Don’t get me started, Sam,” he growled, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

 

“Jesus, what’s up your ass?” Sam asked, merging over a lane to speed past the driver in front of them.

 

“We will have this conversation back at Bobby’s,” Dean replied firmly, “after I have eaten and we can sit down like civilized adults and have this talk. Right now, shut up and let me re-live shooting those bitches who tried to escape.”

 

“Anything for my big brother,” Sam said with a shrug, falling silent and focusing on the road.

 

It was several hours before they had properly hidden the cars, and another hour or so before they got back to Bobby’s. The man asked mercifully few questions, choosing to focus mostly on feeding them and gruffly commenting that Dean seemed much better for their little excursion. Dean was silent; he would not deny that the tribute to their father had felt fantastic, had been one hell of an adrenaline rush, but there were some things that he needed to discuss with Sam before he felt that he could really move on. Old wounds needed attention, and he fully intended to take that attention out of Sam’s ass, for all the transgressions he had made and now seemed to think he could just put aside.

 

Bobby seemed to realize that the two brothers needed space to work things out. “I’m going into town for a drink or ten,” he said as the boys finished eating, placing his own bowl and spoon by the edge of the sink. “Do the dishes, earn your keep, and pick me up from the bar if I call you plastered, got it?”

 

“Course, Bobby,” Sam replied, rising and placing his own dishes in the sink, starting the water as he searched for a sponge.

 

Bobby grunted in response. “You idjits break anything and I’ll open a can of whoop-ass on both of you. If I’m not back by three you can assume that I need you to come down to the station and pay my bail.”

 

“Emergency bail money’s in the envelope under your pillow, I know,” Dean said, finishing his last few bites of stew and joining Sam at the sink.

 

Sam was silent as they washed the dishes. Dean was both grateful for the silence and angry; he wanted his brother to say something, start the conversation, spare him the trouble of bringing up his sudden burst of anger in the car, but instead Sam quietly stood over the sink, scrubbing remnants of stew from the pot like a proper little domestic college boy.

 

Dean couldn’t take it. When Sam had put the last dish away, Dean grabbed him by the collar, spinning him around and slamming his back into the counter-top. “You want to explain where the hell you get off telling me to stop being practical and enjoy the moment?” he snarled, shaking Sam roughly. “You want to explain it? Because last time I checked, you decided to be practical and quit enjoying yourself by walking out on this family so you could go prance around being a good little law-bitch! Where the hell do you get off telling me to quit being careful when you were so scared for your dumb ass that you abandoned us? What the hell?”

 

“Dude!” Sam spread his arms widely, annoyance spreading across his strong features. Dean felt the boiling urge to slap the look of indignation from his brother’s face. “I thought we were past this. I missed my interview for law school for this family. I gave up everything helping you look for Dad and then helping you get over yourself when you decided to just give up and go into a funk! I ruined every chance I ever had at practical or normal for this family—don’t you tell me I walked out on you guys!”

 

Furiously, Dean gave into his urge and slapped him. “No, that’s exactly what you did!” Dean screamed, seizing Sam and bodily throwing him to the floor, where he lay, splayed out gracefully, seemingly boneless with the lack of fight he gave Dean. It was infuriating, the way he just took Dean’s punishment without fighting back. “It’s your fault Dad’s dead! Your fault! He always listened to you best, he always cared about you the most, and if he’d still had you around he would never have used his real identity, he’d have taken more care about not getting caught, hell he’d probably even have had you there as back-up to make sure that damn security guard died and couldn’t give a description of him!” He reared back and punched Sam, fist connecting hard with his cheekbone, bruising his knuckles in the process. “It’s your fault! It’s all your fault!” he raged, almost incoherent, dizzy from the fury and adrenaline. “You did this! Your fault! And you have the fucking balls to get on me for being practical when it was you being _practical_ that left Dad open for the cops! You ruined this family! You might as well have killed him yourself!” His fist slammed into Sam’s nose, letting loose a torrent of blood over Sam’s face.

 

Sam spat blood from his mouth, the rich red liquid splattering over Dean’s neck and jaw. “So what, you want revenge on me?” he growled, glaring up at Dean with murderous hazel eyes. “Then take it! Do it! Get it the fuck out of your system, then get the fuck over yourself and move on! Dad’s dead from his own carelessness, and that’s not on me!”

           

Dean seized Sam by the hair and raised his head, slamming it down hard on the tile floor. “You little bitch, you think you can just shove off all the responsibility you have in this?” he screamed, slamming his brother’s head down again. Sam reached up and wrapped his hands around Dean’s wrists, but Dean hung on, wrenching strands of hair from his brother’s head. “Everything would have been fine if you” he slammed Sam's head into the tile “hadn’t” and again “walked” Sam's eyes were sliding out of focus “out” was that blood in his brother's hair? “on” good, it was just the light “this” Sam's hair was slipping through his fingers “family!” He brought Sam’s head down into the floor one more time, and his brother’s eyes slid out of focus, dazed from the onslaught.

 

“Get up,” he snarled, rolling off Sam and grabbing him by the collar, dragging him to his feet. “You have a fucking lesson to learn, and I’m not fucking up Bobby’s kitchen when he’s one of the only people who actually stuck with this damn family when we needed him.”

 

“So, it’s gonna be the old fashioned way, then?” Sam slurred, stumbling after Dean as his brother dragged him up the stairs and into the guest bedroom.

 

“Oh you wish it was only gonna be that,” Dean growled, slamming the door to the bedroom behind them and locking it. He dropped Sam, who crumpled to the floor, and seized his braided leather belt from the corner. “I’ll teach you what happens for running away from this family!” he hissed, crouching and ripping Sam’s shirt off over his head, slamming him face first into the ground, exposing the long lines of muscle that ran elegantly down his back.

 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Sam replied, voice muffled by the worn carpet. “I’ll give you a free pass on this one.”

 

That made Dean’s blood boil even hotter. He grabbed Sam by the hair and dragged him up, slamming him bent over on the bed. He stood back and raised the belt, bring it down hard and fast on Sam’s back, the braided weave of the belt leaving a long, patterned stripe across Sam’s back. Sam made no noise; infuriated, Dean lashed him again, and again, until his brother finally broke down and screamed. Encouraged, Dean brought the belt down on him until Sam was clutching at the bedspread, feebly scratching, trying in vain to pull himself away from Dean’s punishment. “God, just get it over with already!” he screamed, his voice thick and barely comprehensible with pain.

 

“I don’t owe you that,” Dean snapped, bringing another blow down on his brother’s back. Sam screamed and arched away from the pain, throwing his head back beautifully. Dean knew his brother and his tricks; he was purposefully going into begging, submissive mode in order to speed things along, get to the still unpleasant but ultimately less painful part of his punishment. Dean felt his blood rush through his veins, but no, he did not owe it to Sam to end this yet. “Whose fault is it that Dad is dead?” he shouted, bringing the belt down onto Sam’s shoulders.

 

“Mine!” Sam screamed, his voice rough and scratchy from his cries.

 

“How is it your fault?”

 

“Because I left!” Tears were starting to leak out of Sam’s eyes; as far as Dean could tell, they were real, brought on by pain rather than simple theatrics. Dean smirked bitterly; finally they were getting somewhere.

 

“Then tell me why I should stop?” he demanded. It was the final question; if Sam responded with some sort of pithy comeback, or half-assed reason, then he would keep going. This was about getting his rage out, after all, but even more importantly, it was about teaching Sam a lesson; leaving a family was as good as killing it, and Sam deserved everything he got and more for the death of their father.

 

Sam’s breath hitched; he was making a valiant effort to not break down and sob from the pain, but Dean knew from experience that even the strongest man could only take so many lashes. “Because I’ve learned my lesson. I was wrong, I was wrong, it’s my fault, and if you keep doing this it’s going to start bleeding and get infected and I’ll die too,” he gasped, clutching feebly at the bed sheets.

 

Dean smirked, but there was no real satisfaction behind the expression. “Good enough,” he said, his own voice hoarse from yelling. He grabbed Sam by a welt covered shoulder, producing a yelp from his younger brother as he dragged him off the bed and to his knees before Dean. “You know what comes next,” Dean whispered, wrapping the belt around Sam’s neck and wrenching it tight with one hand, undoing his pants with the other.

 

Sam opened his mouth to gasp for breath, struggling to bring air through constricted passages, and Dean plunged his crotch forward, trying to will himself into hardness. It was hardly a punishment if he simply shoved a soft penis into Sam’s mouth, after all. He thought about his rage, his fury, his bloodlust; he thought about Sam, whipped skinless, smeared with the remains of a kill, blood dripping from his eyelashes, and he felt his own blood rush downwards, until finally he was hard enough to thrust into Sam’s gasping mouth.

 

Dean did not bother allowing Sam to adjust or control his pace. He shoved forward, burying himself in Sam’s mouth, hitting his gag reflex with abandon as he thrust hard and fast into his throat. The tightening of Sam’s throat as he gagged and sputtered was a glorious feeling; Dean had nearly forgotten the sensation, after years without his brother. He pulled the belt tighter with one hand, fisting his free hand through Sam’s hair, shoving Sam’s face flush against his crotch.

 

Sam tapped at his leg frantically with one hand, signaling to Dean that he could not breathe. Dean tugged at the belt and thrust forward hard, prolonging his brother’s panic, before dropping his hand from the belt. He slipped his hand tenderly over the back of Sam’s neck and pulled back slightly for a brief moment before tightening his hands on his brother and thrusting forward again, pounding into the back of his throat as pressure built in his crotch. Sam’s mouth was warm and gasping, his tongue flapping weakly around Dean’s shaft. “You learn your lesson yet?” Dean growled, slamming into the back of Sam’s throat, savoring the feeling. Saliva dripped from his brother’s lips; he grasped feebly at Dean’s jeans and clung, clearly struggling to breathe as Dean thrust into his mouth. “You’re fucking nothing. Father killer. This is what you get,” he snarled, pulling out to give Sam a moment to breathe—he wanted to punish him, to dominate him into submission and repentance, not to kill him—and stood, his penis twitching, throbbing unpleasantly with the pressure that built and seethed inside him. “You’re my little bitch, Sam. This is your place.”

 

Sam nodded weakly, reaching up to wipe the spit from his face. Dean grabbed his hand before he could touch his mouth. “I don’t fucking thing so,” he whispered, staring down at his brother. Sam’s cheeks were flushed, a stark contrast to the rest of his face, which was pale from pain and exhaustion. Sweat had begun to build up on his forehead in a light sheen, slowly trickling down to his wide eyes, through which his shame and humiliation shone freely. Dean smiled grimly and grabbed Sam’s jaw; Sam opened obediently, and Dean thrust into his mouth again, moaning as warmth enveloped his throbbing penis. He ached for release, but he couldn’t finish yet—he had to firmly drive the lesson into Sam’s mind. It was a treat, to see his brother on his knees, submissive and in pain, subject to Dean’s whims, to punishment for his transgressions. Dean kept it teasing at first, lightly thrusting, letting Sam whirl his tongue around the fleshy head of Dean’s penis. It was so good, so perfect, and Dean felt the desire to break his brother to pieces rise up in him, screaming in his mind and his body. Dean tightened his grip on Sam’s hair and reached for the belt again, tugging lightly at it. He was rewarded with a muffled whimper as Sam’s grip tightened on his jeans, hands shaking enough to move the fabric slightly. Dean smirked and pulled the belt tight, once again cutting off Sam’s airways. Sam gagged around him, hands clutching desperately at his legs. Dean thrust forward into Sam’s mouth, slamming repeatedly into the back of his throat until he felt Sam’s grip begin to slacken. He dropped the belt and grabbed his brother’s chin, forcing his head up slightly and halting his thrusts. He allowed Sam to gasp around him for a moment. “You going to finish this, or am I going to have to take it the hard way?” Dean asked, slurring.

 

Sam tightened his grip on Dean’s jeans and reached up with his tongue to swirl around Dean’s shaft. Dean kept his hand fisted in his brother’s hair, but did not pull him forward, allowing Sam to suck, swirling his tongue around the head of Dean’s penis until Dean thought that he was going to burst from the pressure building up inside of him. He groaned, and thrust forward one last time, his orgasm tearing through his body, spilling down the back of Sam’s throat. He supposed Sam’s skills as a former prostitute came in handy here; Sam swallowed without trouble and let his head drop as Dean pulled away.

 

Dean re-buttoned  his pants and knelt down beside Sam. “Realize you got off lightly,” he informed his brother, his voice hard.

 

“I know,” Sam replied huskily. He looked up to meet Dean’s eyes. “Was that enough for you, though? Can we move past this?”

 

Dean shrugged. “Well, you realized you fucked up and didn’t fight me on this one, so yeah, I guess I can let you off lightly,” he said. He did not think he had fully forgiven Sam, but the majority of his fury had left his system, and he did not think that he could beat or fuck the rest of it out into Sam. Dean was not so delusional; he knew that the rest of his anger would take time to fade. The punishment, at least, was a memory that he could fall back on when he felt like fury and grief would consume him again.

 

Sam nodded, swiping a hand across his mouth, grimacing as the welts on his back pulled. “You break the skin anywhere?” he asked, swallowing hard, probably in an attempt to soothe his throat.

 

“Oh all over the place, because I’ve never had to give a beating before,” Dean replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Sam. I get that it’s been years, but I know how to dish out a little punishment without actually hurting you. Put your shirt on and get the hell over it, you’re not going to die.”

 

Sam flipped him off and pulled his shirt back over his head, grimacing as it brushed over welts. It was barely ten at night, but Dean was exhausted; he unlocked the door and stripped quickly down to his boxers, not bothering to so much as brush his teeth before he collapsed onto the bed and gave into his desire to sleep.

 

 


	6. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean messes up and gets arrested. Sam takes a school hostage and demands his release. Once Dean has been let go, Sam falls back on an old childhood punishment to emphasize how much he had screwed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this chapter might be pretty disturbing for some people, what with school shooters being a fairly present threat in this day and age. Or I might just be underestimating people's tolerance for the twisted (maybe yours is higher than mine!). Basically, warning for gunman in school, warning for sex-torture scene that's pretty much noncon.

Restaurants and gas stations, diners and houses, strangers on the streets and those who had the misfortune to go to the bank at the wrong time; each kill brought the same rush of adrenaline, the same high of power, and Sam thought that he was going to explode from the satisfaction that satiated his mind and his body. His back healed within a few weeks, and Dean’s punishment had struck a chord, lit a fire in them both that they had buried when Sam had left for college. Transgressions and stupidity were met with punishment; frustrations transformed into battles for dominance, and though Sam’s throat and backside existed in a constant state of irritation—as did Dean’s, he made sure—he felt stronger and freer than he had ever been. Dean was right; college had been a stupid mistake. He belonged on the road, responsible to no one and nothing except his brother.

Law school was forgotten. Sam had everything he needed, everything he wanted, off of killing and stealing to his heart’s content. He felt more alive than he had all four years of law school. He had taken a half-hearted dip back into his profession, but found that it was so much more satisfying to kill his clients and strip them of their possessions without pleasuring them first, and quickly moved from soliciting clients to simply grabbing and killing random men and women out looking for a good time—and sometimes those providing the good time. Sam was not picky, and felt no kinship towards the sex workers who prowled the streets and truck stops in every city they passed through.

He could have gone on forever, reveling in the anonymity that came with being a traveling murderer and thief, had Dean not fucked up and gotten himself caught.

Sam was fast asleep in the run down motel room he and Dean had gotten for the night when he got the call. He frowned at the unfamiliar number, but picked up anyways. “It’s five in the morning. What,” he growled into the speaker.

"It’s me.” Panic lay under the cold, steady tone Dean was putting on. “Got caught out by the side of the road. I’m in some serious shit and I need you to get me out.”

Sam sat up, instantly alert. “How much is your bail?” he demanded, pulling a jacket on over his bare chest and jamming his feet into his boots without bothering with socks.

“200 thousand,” Dean replied grimly, voice hard. “I don’t think we have that much, do we? Can you get it?”

“Got a better idea,” Sam said, stuffing his clothes into his overnight bag, swinging by the bathroom to snag his and Dean’s toothbrushes before leaving. “Sit tight, you fuck-up. Help is coming in an unconventional form.”

“Yeah, well, get me out of here quick,” Dean grumbled, sighing heavily. “And no stunts like with Dad! I’m not desperate enough for that sort of help yet.”

“Yeah, I get you,” Sam said, stuffing his bag in the trunk of the Impala. “It’s going to take me a few hours, so go make nice with your jail buddies and hope that none of them want that ass of yours.”

Dean hung up without another word. Sam cursed, checking his watch; only a few minutes after five. It was an hour’s drive to Roadhouse if he sped, and if he gave himself an hour to steal a car and an hour to get back, he would be back in town by eight. He placed his phone, underneath the tires of the Impala and backed up, his phone crunching under the pressure of the car. He would get all his necessary contacts from Dean’s phone before destroying it, after he was able to pick up another device—that would come after rescuing his brother. He sped off towards the direction of the Roadhouse—he doubted that Ellen or Jo would have opened the bar so early in the morning, but Ash might be there working away at another all-night project.

Sam was in luck; the door was open when he arrived. “Ash!” he shouted, stomping into the building. “It’s Sam. I need help!”

“Sam?” Ash’s head popped out from behind a tucked away door, his trade-mark mullet greasy and mussed, evidence of several long nights with little sleep. “Shit, man, I thought you dropped out of this op! What do you need?”

“Dean’s been arrested,” Sam said briskly, without preamble. “Got any spare rides floating around, or do I need to steal one?”

Ash shook his head. “Naw, man, nothing on us right now. Police have been cracking down like mad and it’s too risky. They won’t be around this early though, they start trolling at noon and end at four or so. Don’t worry, I've fucked with all the cameras and bugs they stuck in this place,” Ash assured him. “But it’s not a safe hideaway anymore, so we can’t keep cars and weapons stocks and shit here.”

“Know anywhere that’s safe to get one this time of day?” Sam demanded.

Ash smirked. “Yeah, there’s some used car dump a mile or so down the road. I’ll drop you off there and you can take whatever you need.” He squinted at Sam. “You and your bro still driving that nice, distinctive Impala?”

“Yes—”

“Gimme the keys,” Ash said, holding out his hand. “I’ll swing by Jo’s. Her new boyfriend’s a real champ, arms dealer who covers buying parts by running a mechanic’s business. Fuck up your car a little bit and no one will question it being out in his lot.”

“You’re a real fucking miracle,” Sam complimented him, fishing the keys from Ash’s pocket and handing them over. “You’ll take us to pick up the car when I've got Dean?”

“Yeah, not a problem,” Ash said, leading Sam out to the lot. “Got a tarp?” he asked, moving to the front of the Impala.

Sam nodded. “Pop the trunk,” he ordered, leading Ash around to the back. He dug out an old tarp, one that would not be missed, and handed it to Ash. Ash laid the material down in front of the car, lifted a booted foot, and kicked the front left headlight. The glass shattered onto the tarp, and Ash moved to perform the same action on the other headlight. “Bundle that up, dump it in the sewers,” he advised, opening the driver’s side door and climbing in. “Well come on, you want to go pick up a car or not?”

Wordlessly, Sam climbed into the passenger’s seat. Ash did not bother with a seat-belt, so Sam did not bother with his own. It was a quick drive to the used car lot; Sam left the car and opened the trunk, stuffing his pockets with knives and ropes, arming himself well with automatics and semi-automatics, and attaching a few grenades to his belt for good measure. He slammed the trunk shut and saluted Ash. “Hey, don’t get caught,” Ash advised, before speeding off in the Impala.

Shaking his head, Sam spotted a used, rusty truck that had probably been red at some point in the middle of the lot. It was an old car, making it easy to pick the lock and hot-wire the vehicle. Sam sped off down the road, glancing at the beaten, nearly invisible clock. 6:30. Not bad on time, then. Now, first things first, to find a grade school in the area… 

High schools started the earliest; Sam remembered rolling out of bed at 6 to get on the bus by 6:45, whenever he and Dean had . He drove, eyes searching, until at last he came to a high school with a full parking lot. Taft High, he read, driving into the parking lot and parking up next to one of the school’s side doors. The stately brick building was new, no doubt the pride of the run-down community. Sam grinned; he would be honored to be the first gun-man in this school.

Gathering up his weapons, Sam made for the doors. It seemed that first bell had not started, they opened easily, unlocked. Sam marched in and cocked one of the three guns he had brought in with him, a semi-automatic, tame in contrast with the two automatics he carried slung around his shoulders. “Everyone, shut up if you want to live!” he roared into the crowded hall. The chatter died down instantly; sullen faces and cheerful expressions froze, stunned, as he took a few steps forward. Sam glanced around and seized a short, brace-faced girl, a freshman by the looks of her, by the neck of her T-shirt. The girl let out a short scream as he pulled her close to him. “Everyone, in that classroom,” he ordered, firing a shot in the air. “You try to escape, she dies and I pick another one.” There was a brief moment of mass hesitation. “Now!” Sam roared. Almost in unison, students and teachers alike hurried into the classroom, several hundred bodies jamming themselves into the confined space. It was a classroom on the inner portion of the hall—no windows, no closets, Sam was relieved to see. He shot the inner handle, and wrenched the remains off the door, closing it as the last teacher scurried in.

Sam’s hostage was weeping soundlessly, tears rolling down her round face. Sam felt a rush of bloodlust, the desire to shoot her repeatedly until he ran out of rounds, but he knew that he could not kill her yet—not unless the police refused to cooperate with him. Instead, he dragged her by the neck of her shirt, following the generic layout of the school until he found the main office.

Dramatically, Sam kicked the door open, shoving the girl in ahead of him. The receptionist looked up, gum falling out of her mouth in shock at the sight of a gunman in her school, holding onto one of her students. “Save your whimpering,” Sam ordered as the woman let out a frightened whine. “You are going to call up the police station, and you are going to put the phone on speaker. If you've got cameras, you are going to turn them on and allow the cops access to your system. You leave this room, you die. You help anyone else out, you die, and so does this.” He shook the student for emphasis.

Hands shaking, the woman reached for the phone and hastily dialed 911, putting the phone on speaker. “911, what’s your emergency?” a smooth voice on the other end said.

“Listen closely,” Sam thundered, enunciating every syllable with care. “I have Taft High School. This place is mine. I've got more ammo than your entire police force combined, and all the students and teachers secured.” He fired a shot into the air for emphasis; both the receptionist and the student hostage screamed and threw their hands up to their ears. “Put the police chief on the phone or this kid dies. What’s your name?” he demanded of the round faced girl.

“A-Aya Yamamoto,” she whispered, voice barely audible.

“Aaah, Aya Yamamoto, aren't you precious,” Sam sneered, stumbling slightly over the unconventional name. “Police chief, now, or little miss Aya gets a pre-mature death via bullet in her skull.”

There was some shuffling, and a woman’s voice came through the phone. “This is police chief Sanders. What are your demands?” she asked, steady and deliberate.

“Your people arrested someone last night,” Sam replied coldly. “You arrested a man last night out by the side of the road. I propose a trade; give him to me and let us go and these kids get to keep their lives. If you’re that desperate to keep him, well, I have all the supplies I need to take out every one of these little bastards.”

“We arrested several people last night by the side of the road,” the chief answered calmly. “Could you describe the man you’re looking for?”

Sam growled. “Upwards of six feet tall. White. Blonde. Green eyes. Freckles. Have him here in half an hour or I start shooting. One officer; no more. I see any officers without him, or more than one officer with him, I shoot them, and one kid for every extra. Got it?”

“We’ll have him to you presently.” The line went dead; Sam grinned, triumphant. 

“Looks like you might just get to live, little miss Aya,” he crooned, taking it on himself to torment the girl as a way to pass the time. “Aw, don’t cry! I probably won’t have to shoot you!” The girl only sobbed harder. Sam’s eyes hardened and he placed the barrel of his gun against her throat. “I just told you to stop crying.”

The girl gulped, trying to silence her sobs. Sam smiled cruelly. “There, isn't that better?” he asked, tilting the gun against her skin. “You like school, Aya? Have fun flitting around with your friends? Do your teachers and parents tell you that you have a bright future if you just work hard and apply yourself?”

Swallowing hard, the girl nodded once. “Awww, isn't it sweet how our loved ones lie?” Sam’s face hardened. “You have no future, girl. You want to know something? I was top of my class. I went to Stanford. And yet here I am, in your little piss-pot of a school, holding a gun to your throat. That is true success, true power.” He smiled, reaching out and patting her on the head, laughing as she flinched. “Maybe you’ll grow up to be just like me. Now, wouldn't that be something?” he asked, snickering.

The front door swung open, and through the office window, Sam watched a young officer walk in, hand wrapped around Dean’s bicep. Dean grinned cheerfully, waving at his brother. The officer held up his free hand, coming up to the office door when Sam motioned him forward. Sam opened the door and smiled tightly at the officer, who bristled with ill-concealed fury. “All right, you have what you want," the man spat bitterly. "Let the kids go.”

Sam snorted. “Please. Do you think I’m that stupid?” he asked. “You are going to go and wait in your car. We are going to take several students with us, as insurance. We will let them go when we are satisfied that you’re not following us. You will wait until we are out of sight, and only then will you enter the building to get the other students out. If I find anyone—anyone—following us, even if they are not police, even if they are police from another town, the kids die. You’re going to have your hands full finding them, so I suggest you focus on that rather than searching for us.” Sam smiled brightly at the officer. “Off you go! Go sit in the car and think about what happens when you touch those close to me!”

“You’re a sick, sick man,” the officer seethed, releasing Dean’s arm and backing out of the office.

Sam ignored him, turning to Dean. “We’ll talk about this later,” he muttered, slapping his brother solidly. “Let’s go. We’ll take another couple kids with us as insurance. I have room for three in the back.”

“Nice plan you had there,” Dean said in answer, grinning, unfazed by the slap. Sam snorted and led him out of the room, still dragging Aya by her collar. He threw open the door to the crowded classroom. “All right, which two of you fine boys and girls want to take a ride with me and my brother?” he shouted into the room, which had frozen upon his appearance. “No one? Oh come on, do I have to start shooting everyone who doesn't volunteer?”

One of the teachers began to step forward. “No, not you,” Sam said, training the gun on him. “Students only. Don’t really feel like taking teachers out on a ride-along right now, eighteen and younger only!”

There was a moment’s pause, and then a tall, dark skinned boy stepped forward, his rail thin body trembling. “That’s one, can we get another volunteer? Another, or I start shooting!” Sam sang, casually letting the gun roam around the room.

A slightly pudgy girl clad in all black stepped forward, her face pale with fright under dyed blue hair. “Always can count on the alternative kids to step up to death,” Sam said mockingly, gesturing for her to stand with the tall boy and Aya. “All right, not to fret, the police will be here soon to get your pitiful asses out!” he crowed, herding his three captives out of the room and locking the door. “You, keep a hold of these two. Sit with them in the back, and I’ll keep miss Aya up in the front with me,” he ordered Dean, shooting his brother a challenging glance.

They herded the kids into the car with little trouble, their hostages too frightened to disobey. Sam placed his automatics in the trunk, but kept the grenades and semi-automatic safely on his person as he climbed into the front seat. “I don’t even know how to articulate how pissed I am with you,” he growled, settling in and starting the car. “Really? Really! You went out without back-up? What the hell did they catch you doing?”

“It was an accident,” Dean replied snappily. “I wasn't planning on killing anyone, but this asshole at the bar tried to cheat me out of the money I won at pool, so I lured him out and killed him. They caught me burying the body.”

“At the side of the road?” Sam demanded furiously. “Jesus Dean, how fucking stupid can you possibly be?”

“Okay, I’m sorry! I fucked up, I get it! It's not like I had the car to find a suitable back lot!”

"Well, you know what happens when one of us fucks up,” Sam snapped, livid. “But we've got to dump these first,” he said, nodding at the students around them.

“How are we even going to pull this off?” Dean asked with trepidation. “The cops know what we look like now.”

“Not we. Me. Doubt they paid two fucks attention to your face. And we’re gonna have to go pretty damn far,” Sam growled, speeding onto the open road. “Look for exits. Tell me when you see one that looks like it goes to a fairly deserted place.”

"Got it,” Dean said, leaning back, his arm brushing against the tall boy, who stiffened noticeably. Sam laughed harshly, driving until Dean pointed out the first promising exit. Sam drove onto the exit and followed the road until he reached a small, fairly deserted neighborhood. 

“Watch them,” Sam ordered, tossing the gun to Dean, who caught it. Sam got out of the car and dragged Aya across the seats, out through the driver’s side door. “Make a noise and I will snap your throat,” he warned, reaching into his pockets and pulling out a roll of twine. The girl whimpered, but was silent apart from that. Quickly, Sam bound her wrists behind her back and secured her to the speed limit sign at the edge of the road. He pulled his pocket knife out from the front of his jeans and sliced off the bottom half of her shirt, binding it around her eyes. “Pleasure to meet you. Try not to die of exposure,” he offered, grinning, before hopping back into the car. “And now onto the next one!” he exclaimed. “None of you have had to die yet, so your chances are looking pretty good,” he said by way of small talk. He drove for what felt like hours, though it only took half the time that it seemed, before he found another suitable town, where he left the other girl. Doubling back a bit, he headed northeast; it was dark before he found a town to leave the boy. Sam drove to the next town over, where he left the car parked in a resident’s driveway as replacement for their comfortable minivan, which he and Dean climbed into silently. There was no question of going to Roadhouse to pick up the Impala tonight; Sam was exhausted. He drove, silent, as Dean sat awkwardly in the passenger’s seat, apparently unwilling to start the conversation about how many ways he had screwed up.

Sam drove until they reached a seemingly deserted rural road. Several miles in, he pulled into what appeared to be a vacation house; at any rate, it was empty and quiet, devoid of neighbors who could call the police if Dean screamed too loud in response to his punishment. Then again, perhaps Sam would inflict some sort of silent punishment on him, just to minimize their chances of getting caught.

The place was nicer than any motel that Sam or Dean would have been able to afford; damn rich people and their money, throwing it away on houses they didn't even use. Were it not for the fact that their faces were doubtless plastered all over the news in several states, if not nationwide, Sam would have been determined detonate his grenades in the morning, or if they stayed longer, before they left; however, it looked like the streak was over. It was time for them to lay low and regroup, not to continue their spree. Sam sighed; and to think that it had been going so well until now.

“Dean,” he started coldly, looking down at his brother. “You know you fucked up. Why don’t you list off every way that you screwed things up for us?”

Dean glared at him. “I killed a guy without backup. I buried him in a stupid place. I got caught. What more do you want from me, Sam?” he demanded, spitting the words out vehemently.

“You killed a guy without backup,” Sam said, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, marking down a tally. “You didn't call me to help you dispose of the body. You buried him in a stupid place. You got caught. You let them arrest you. You dragged me in to pull your ass out of this. You got both of our faces out to the media as criminals.” He shook his head in disgust. “That’s seven transgressions. Go fill up the bathtub, Dean.”

Dean’s face went white. “Sammy—”

“Now,” Sam snarled, backhanding him sharply. Neither of them had used this punishment since they were kids; it was terrifying, it was risky, the chance of an accident was much higher than a simple beating, or a hard fucking. As far as Sam was concerned, Dean had properly earned this one.

Face white and set, Dean looked around the house for a bathroom with a tub. Sam held his breath, hoping that the place had water. It did—damn rich people who could afford to keep water running in a house they were not using—and Dean slowly turned the cold tap onto full, before turning and giving Sam a pleading look. “Sammy—”

“On your knees,” Sam said quietly, cutting his brother off. “You deserve this. You know how much you fucked up. Now don’t fucking question me, or I’ll double your sets.”

Body tense and resolute, Dean knelt, stripping off his shirt. Sam whipped off his brother’s belt, binding his arms to his body; he used his own belt to bind Dean’s hands together behind his back. “Take a deep breath,” Sam ordered as the bathtub filled steadily, menacingly. “One,” he started, placing a knee on Dean’s back and shoving his face into the water. “Two. Three. Four.”

Sam counted to sixty and wrenched his brother’s head out of the water. “Breathe!” he shouted, slamming Dean’s head back in as he sputtered for breath. Sam counted to sixty again and pulled Dean out, again shouting “Breathe!” before shoving him back under. Only when all seven transgressions had received their minute did he pull Dean out for good and check his pulse, weak but still there. Dean coughed pitifully, a small stream of water spewing from his lips.

Sam did not bother to untie Dean. He hastily pulled his brother’s pants down. “You fucked up good, Dean,” he growled, seizing a cylindrical bottle of shampoo and lining it up between Dean’s ass cheeks. He shoved, forcing the object in without preparation. Dean screamed, leaning forward and heaving up water into the bathtub, struggling to keep his head up out of the water. Sam reached forward and seized Dean’s head by the hair, wrenching his neck back to keep his brother from drowning. “Apparently you can’t be trusted by yourself anymore. So I’ll make it so you can’t even walk without my help!” He kneed Dean’s backside, forcing the bottle in further. The sound of ripping flesh alerted him that Dean was bleeding, that he had succeeded in cutting him open from the inside. With his free hand, Sam hastily undid his pants, and then slid the bottle out of his brother. The sound of Dean’s screams, the flow of his blood, the weak helplessness that his bonds and near-drowning incited—all of these combined left Sam ready, wanting, needing. He lined himself up and thrust into his brother, reveling in the feeling of torn flesh, slicked and ready with blood. “God, yes,” he groaned as he ripped into Dean’s already torn flesh, blood pooling around his shaft, trapped inside Dean’s completely filled passage. Blood was the best lubricant; the sheer sensation of power that came with fucking into someone with their own life force was enough to nearly send Sam over the edge. He wrenched Dean’s head back even further, pulling his brother up to his knees with the force of his grip, and pounded into him, soaking the bathmat and floor with Dean’s blood. “Beg me to stop,” he whispered, biting sharply into Dean’s ear, gnawing at the cartilage until he finally broke the skin.

Dean groaned in response, shuddering against Sam’s chest. “Please,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please, no more Sammy, no more—”

Sam wrapped his free arm around Dean’s torso, holding him tight against his chest, and released his hair, wrapping a large hand around his brother’s mouth. “Yes more, but that was very good,” he whispered, rocking back and forth lazily, his motions limited by the change in position. “But I’ll give you a little breather, does that sound good? Like it gentle like this?”

Dean gasped, his arms struggling weakly at the belts that bound him. Sam whispered soothingly in his ear, nuzzling the side of his neck as he rocked slowly back and forth. Pleasure sparked through him as he moved, purposefully avoiding Dean’s prostate—he could allow his brother a breather, but pleasure would destroy the punishment entirely. “You gonna fuck up again?”

Dean whimpered and shook his head, his short hair brushing against Sam’s temple, his mouth opening slightly against Sam’s hand. Sam groaned, and pulled out halfway. “Then get your legs in order and turn around,” he ordered, pulling his hands away from Dean’s body, slick with water and blood.

Dean cried out, voice weak and hoarse with pain. He struggled, shifting weakly to turn without pulling away from Sam—Sam grinned, knowing the pain his brother feared if he denied him. It was rare that he could put true terror onto Dean’s face, but the occasions when he did were so sweet, every last one of them was seared into his memory. This moment could go to join them. With Dean situated facing him, legs shaking with the effort, face contorted with fear and pain, Sam could barely contain himself. His body screamed at him to come, to release and beat Dean bloody, but Sam stilled the urge, tenderly pushing Dean down so that the back of his neck rested on the edge of the bathtub. “You ready?” he asked, leering at Dean as he reached forward to stroke his twisted, bruised face. 

Dean shook his head frantically, green eyes glassy with pain and exhaustion. Sam slipped a hand under Dean’s head, cradling it gently, using his other hand to grip his brother’s shoulder with bruising force. He squeezed Dean’s shoulder, savoring his pitiful cry as he shoved forward, pounding into Dean’s blood-slicked body. He panted, trying to think of words, of hateful, spiteful things that he could say to drill this lesson into his brother’s brain, but his mind was blissfully blank, and the only thoughts he could hold onto for more than a fraction of a second were more, need, more, faster, more! He dug his nails into Dean’s shoulder, tense limbs shaking with need as his brother flopped weakly beneath him.

With a victorious cry, Sam orgasmed, spilling into Dean’s body, continuing to thrust away as he did so. “Fuck, he gasped, pulling out and dragging Dean backwards to the floor, glistening with water and sweat, his own blood matting into his hair. “Fuck. I almost hope you didn't learn your lesson,” he mumbled, lying down next to his brother and kissing his bloody head.

Dean moaned softly in reply, before coughing up the last remains of the water in his lungs. “Sam, please,” he rasped in a whisper. “Not that one again. I can’t do the bathtub again, not ever, please.”

Sam shushed him and kissed his neck tenderly. “No promises, Dean,” he murmured, stroking the blood on his brother’s face. “No promises. It’s all on you. Don’t fuck up this badly again, and I will never have to do anything like this to you again. You know you deserved everything you got.

Dean nodded weakly, unable to even lift his head off the floor. Sam smiled and rose to a crouch, undoing the belts from around his brother’s body. “Come on, Dean. Let’s get you cleaned up and off to bed. Don’t you worry about clean-up, I've got it. We’ll go get the Impala back tomorrow, and you can heal on the road.”

Dean groaned in reply, weakly clutching at Sam as the taller man picked him up. Dean’s face was beautiful, contorted with pain as it was, and Sam wished that he had a faster recovery time so that he could take his brother again—but no, no, he needed his rest and with the working over Sam had given him, that might well kill him. Sam shrugged, laying his brother down on the couch and heading back to the bathroom to scrub out the blood and burn the bathmat. Evidence erased, he wandered the house until he found a bedroom and collapsed on the bed, sated and satisfied. He had his brother back, the punishment had been a success, and while they were now constricted by a potentially federal investigation, he could live with the wait, he thought.  
 


	7. Drugs and Disappearance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam does not return from a trip to the grocery store; Dean goes to Rufus's safe house to get together people to look for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freaking finally, plot starts to happen. Still not the main plot, but it ties in. I'm really excited to get this chapter up--this bit is one of my favorite parts of Dominance. Please let me know what you think!

Dean shifted in the passenger’s seat, unable to find a comfortable position. He could stand, even walk on his own now, but he could only heal so quickly, and Sam’s punishment had left him in a constant state of pain. The Impala was more comfortable than the work out truck, to be certain, but still, even while lying flat on his stomach, Dean had not had a pain free moment since Sam had ripped him open and nearly drowned him.

 

He thought that they were in New Mexico, but he wasn’t certain. Motels were out of the question, as were gas stations and diners. When they needed gas, Sam siphoned it out of cars in people-free parking lots, never taking more than a gallon from any given tank—they needed to be inconspicuous, he said. When they ran low on food, he would break into grocery stores after hours and take what they needed. Sam had gotten them both new phones, courtesy of Bobby as an intermediary, and when he could they parked in lots that received faint wifi signals. Sam had been correct; the search for them was now federal, and they could not risk showing their faces to anyone who was not already a connection.

 

Sam had heard that Rufus, leader of a crime ring that John had worked with multiple times and Bobby contracted for when work got slow, had a safe house in Arizona, a place where they would be able to get haircuts and dye-jobs and learn the arts of using clothing and make-up to subtly change their appearances just enough that they could get by without being recognized. Dean had wanted to go straight there, but his brother had insisted that they drive around, taking their time and keeping the police off their tail. It was bullshit, Dean had thought, but the one time he had tried to articulate this to Sam, he had found himself gagged, unable to speak or breathe as Sam fucked his mouth in a show of dominance. Weakened from Sam’s punishment, Dean knew that Sam could exert dominance over him for the time being, and grudgingly sank into the role as second in command, waiting for the day when he was well enough to take control back from his brother.

 

Sam glanced over at him from the driver’s seat. “What do you think? Take it to the border, then head on into Arizona to meet up with Rufus?” he asked, though Dean knew it wasn’t a question.

 

"Sounds good to me,” Dean replied, looking out the window. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but at least it was a start.

 

Sam grinned and drove, the open road stretching ahead of them, few cars on the road. It was hours, and nearly midnight, when he stopped at a vacant grocery store. “Back in a few!” he said cheerfully, kissing Dean on the forehead and leaving the car.

 

Dean groaned, leaning his seat back and stretching out. He hoped that Sam found a place to park the car soon so that he could stretch out in the backseat; in the meantime, this would have to do. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, intent on napping until Sam got back.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Dean cracked his eyes open; it was still dark, and for a moment he thought that he had simply dozed off for a moment, but a quick glance at his phone told him that it was nearly four in the morning. “What the hell?” he muttered, unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out of the car on wobbly legs. He glanced around and shut the door, making his way across the parking lot. “Sam?” he called softly, peering through the cracked door of the deserted grocery store. He did not see Sam. “Damnit Sam, not funny,” he muttered, pulling out his phone and dialing his brother’s number.

 

The phone rang, rang, and went to voicemail. Dean stared in disbelief at his phone as Sam’s voice called out his missed call message. “This is not fucking funny. Leaving me in the car for four hours is not funny. Get your ass out here now, or I swear I will kill you.” Scowling, Dean hung up and moved into the store. It was dark and empty, as was to be expected—Dean was grateful that it was not one of those grocery stores that opened ridiculously early for the morning crowd, and thus stuffed itself with employees before the sun had risen.

 

“Come on, Sam, where are you,” he muttered, shining his phone down the aisles, dimly illuminating shelves of food and drinks and toilet paper. There was no reply, or even any movement. Dean snarled, stalking over to the frozen foods section, when a the dim light of his phone cast a glint on a small object on the floor. He stopped, ice filling his veins. He knelt, picking up the brand new, black cell phone that lay on the gleaming white tiles, screen cracked but still readable. _1 missed call: D Win._

Dean stared at the phone disbelievingly. “No,” he whispered, because it was impossible. Sam would never leave his phone voluntarily—too much incriminating evidence—but Sam was a Winchester, and he would not have allowed himself to be taken. Cops would not have posed a problem, and cops would have looked for Dean as well. In the front seat of his Baby, he had not been well hidden; they would have found him. Dean had no idea who could have taken Sam, but it was the only explanation.

 

Dean shoved his panic down, striding as quickly as he could back to the Impala. He would have to hotwire her, since Sam had left with the keys, but Dean was the one who had proofed her against hotwiring—he knew how to break his own system. He called Rufus on the way out to the car, scowling as his call went straight to voicemail. “Rufus? You’d better call me back and give me the directions to your place as soon as you get this. I’m on my way right now. Someone took Sam.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

His head was pounding. That wasn’t a good sign. Sam groaned, wishing that he could fall back into blissful unconsciousness, but the ache in his cramped back simply would not allow him to zone out back into sleep. He winced, sitting up as far as he was able—that was weird, why couldn’t he sit up all the way?—and twisted as far as he could, removing the kinks from his stiff spine. He reached up to crack his neck, or rather tried; his hands met a strange resistance, as though bound—

 

 Sam’s eyes shot open as his last memory came flooding back. “Fuck!” he shouted, his eyes snapping open. He had been in the grocery store, stuffing his pockets with canned goods, almost ready to move on to dry food, when someone had come up behind him and stabbed him in the neck—it had to have been a needle, although it felt like a knife in Sam’s memory. He twisted, straining his eyes in the dim light. Wrists bound to the arms of a chair with zip ties, twine gripping his forearms to the back of the chair, leather straps at three points around his torso, ankles cuffed to the legs of the chair, calves lined with assorted ropes and strings and belts. Sam struggled, trying to pull the chair up off the floor, but it seemed to be bolted to the wall. Growling, Sam wrenched at his bonds, but whoever had tied them clearly knew what they were doing. Sam could not have better secured a prisoner with just these materials himself; this was no vigilante or wayward police officer. No, this was the work of a professional—either a bounty hunter, or a killer like himself.

 

Sam took a deep breath and weighed his options. He could play the role of the meek and cooperative prisoner, bargaining with his captors. He could act as the confused, innocent man—well, that one was out of the question. He could bluster and threaten and fight back, but that was likely to get him killed. Or he could simply be honest, cooperating when it suited him and fighting back when he was able. The last option was definitely the most attractive. Sam steeled himself for pain and slammed his head back into the wall. “Hey!” he shouted, voice surprisingly clear, considering he had just awoken from a drugged stupor. “Congratulations! You caught me! Now tell me what you want from me!”

 

To his surprise, the door opened. Sam caught a glimpse of his surroundings—he was in a one roomed shack situated in what appeared to be a complex of similar buildings—before the door shut. He grimaced at the darkness, and then, much to his surprise, the light flicked on, revealing his captor.

 

“Well, well, well,” the surprisingly attractive brunette woman said, walking over to Sam slowly, even seductively. Sam swallowed hard; he had been expecting a bruiser, a tough, hardened criminal with guns and bulging muscles. Instead, his captor was slender, even delicate looking, her pretty features unblemished by fighting, her long hair down, easy to grab and use as a hand-hold. Had Sam not been tied so securely, he would most likely have been able to take her down in less than a second. “The infamous Sam Winchester. Not that the media has your name yet, but hey, we’ve got sources the media would cream themselves to get.” An organization—that made sense, then. No way this petite little  model of a woman would have been able to take him down on her own. “And here you are, playing guest with us. This is a fortunate turn of events.”

 

“What do you want with me?” Sam snapped, jerking at his bindings.

 

“Not very polite, are you?” the woman asked, raising her eyebrows disapprovingly at him. “You might want to change that. My name is Ruby, and I am the person who is going to advocate for giving you a pleasant fate—if you behave yourself.” She walked forward, reaching out to run a hand through Sam’s hair. It took all of Sam’s willpower to not jerk away from her touch. “Better,” the woman said, clearly pleased.

 

“You are currently the property of a small, family friendly organization,” Ruby informed him, as she continued to caress his hair and face. “I think you’ll like it here, once you get used to it. Not quite up your alley, but I think we can find some use for you in security and taking on hits. You see, we’re a fun little group that thinks it’s just a shame that in this so-called land of the free, people can’t even be free to choose their own escape routes. We do a little under-the-table business here and there to try to alleviate that issue.” She smiled down at Sam with mirthless eyes. “The dealer your brother used to go through is one of ours. Oh, what a lovely boy he was. He’s in prison now, but we just might get him back if you don’t behave.”

 

“So you’re part of a drug cartel,” Sam said slowly, deliberately.

 

“I prefer to think of us as people who distribute desirable goods and services to people who choose them as an escape route, much the way you and your brother used to do before you could get your hands on alcohol. A business, for the most part. But I suppose that if you want to call us a drug cartel, you’d be right up there with the dear old United States government.” Ruby shook her head scornfully. “But you’re not against drugs, now, are you Sam? Some people kill, some people drink, and some people live for their next hit. You’ve done all three, after all.”

 

Sam shrugged. “I don’t care who does drugs. We’re all going to die eventually, might as well enjoy the ride,” he replied carefully, not taking his eyes off the woman. What sort of role could a helpless looking female like Ruby play in a drug-running operation? She didn’t have the muscle to move the goods, or the look that would lead people to ask her for drugs in the first place. Frustrated, Sam sighed, relaxing back into the chair, his arms sore from pulling at his bonds. “So what do you want with me, again?”

 

Ruby’s smile widened. “Now that, Sam, depends on your behavior over these next few days,” she said pleasantly. “If you’re good, we’ll make you a permanent part of our team. Run supplies, guard the camp, take out people who try to run out on us, or who skip paying what they owe. Of course, if you don’t behave yourself, we’ve got some people in prison that we’d love to get back, and I think the government would be pretty interested in letting a few low-profile drug dealers go in order to bag the infamous Taft High School shooter.”

 

“Oh, that’s what they’re calling me now?” Sam asked, unimpressed. “Stupid. I didn’t even shoot anyone that time.”

 

“No, but you know the press, now, don’t you? Oh, you’ve been made out to be a bloodthirsty child-killer. And it’s not even really a lie, now, is it?” Ruby purred, patting him on the head.

 

"I’d rather kill adults if given the choice,” Sam replied with a shrug. “Kids are too easy.”

 

“It’s nice to know that you like the challenge,” Ruby said, drawing away. “That’s useful to know. But I’m not here to test your abilities and preferences, only your obedience.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small knife. Sam flinched away reflectively, but Ruby turned the knife on herself, rather than him. With a determined smile, she lightly sliced open her wrist, letting blood flow freely from the cut. “Drink,” she ordered, holding the wounded limb out to Sam, “before it closes up.”

 

Sam stared at her incredulously, only to meet her eyes and realize that she was not kidding. Sam shrugged—it was not as though he had never tasted blood before—and lowered his mouth to her wrist, sucking lightly at the cut, letting the blood wash over his teeth and swallowing it down, then drawing away.

 

Her blood tasted strange, somehow. Sam could not count the number of times he had wound up with someone else's blood in his mouth, but it always tasted the same; tangy and metallic, a cold, dead flavor. Ruby’s blood tasted of smoke laced with sweetness, a sensation not quite overpowering the tang of the blood, but obviously present nonetheless. Sam stared up at her; it occurred to him that she was a member of a drug cartel, and may well have taken something that would pass from her bloodstream into him. “You don’t have AIDS, do you?” Sam asked, carefully, “or anything else that would affect me?”

 

Ruby shook her head mockingly at him. “No AIDS, no drugs, but it will affect you.” She kissed Sam’s forehead in a mockery of tenderness. “Trust me Sam, you won’t regret it. In fact, I think you’ll come to crave it.” She turned on her heel and left the room, turning the light out behind her.

 

Sam sat there in the dark, frustrated with the lack of answers he had received. He tugged at his bonds, adrenaline coursing through his body. It felt stronger than normal, somehow, as though he was being fueled and strengthened with a permanent energy. He strained, and the zip ties on his left hand snapped. Sam grinned at the victory—whatever that woman had put in her blood, she was damn stupid for giving it to him—and jerked his arm up, loosening the twine enough that he could slip out of the ropes. He hurriedly untied the ropes that bound his right arm to the chair and braced his right hand on the end of the chair’s arm, reaching awkwardly around to grab the left arm from the underside. He jerked his left arm upwards and slammed down with all the power in his right, snapping the arm of the chair in half. Carefully, wary of splinters, Sam slid his hand back, pulling the arm of the chair out of the tie, which hung uselessly around his wrist.

 

The belts that bound his torso were held on with simple buckles, and the ties that bound his legs were held in knots that, while complicated, only took Sam a few minutes to figure out. Now he just had to get the cuffs off the legs of the bolted chair. He rose, moving the few inches that he could from the chair, and kicked outward with one foot, splintering the wood. He took a step forward with his free foot and wrenched, breaking free in a shower of splinters. There was no point in moving quietly now; they would have definitely heard the wood breaking. Sam bolted, slamming through the doors and into the punishingly bright, arid sunlight.

           

Sam only made it a few feet before he was tackled to the dry ground. He slammed face first into the dust and flipped over, struggling back up to his feet. He spun around, ready to face his opponent: Ruby stood before him, a satisfied smirk gracing her lovely features. “You bitch!” Sam growled, lunging forward to seize her neck.

 

It was impossible; no human could move that fast. Sam barely had time to register that Ruby had dodged him when he felt a slender, frighteningly strong hand twist his arm up behind his back. “Nice job, Sam,” she breathed, her breath hot in his ear. “Got out of there a lot quicker than I thought you would.”

 

Sam kicked backwards, knocking her away by several feet. Panting, he spun around to face her. “You really think you can stop me, bitch?” he snarled, sweat beading around his forehead as the sun beat down mercilessly overhead.

 

“There’s no think about it, Sam,” Ruby replied, grinning at him as though he was some delectable food she was about to devour. “You feel powerful with that taste of blood in your system? Imagine if all your blood was like that. Then you would know how it feels to be me.” She laughed. “Besides, all you’ve done with it is brute muscle. You haven’t figured out how to do anything subtle, anything that might set you apart as more than another generic bruiser.” She lunged forward and tackled him to the ground with one arm, producing a length of chain with her free hand from the waistband of her jeans and wrapping it tightly around his throat. Sam gasped as his ability to breathe was abruptly cut off, and wrenched at the chain, struggling to get his fingers under it as Ruby slowly, steadily pulled it tighter. Black spots danced before Sam’s eyes and he heaved, fighting futilely to get air into his lungs. Ruby’s eyes seemed to go solidly black, and the last thing Sam saw was her elbow coming down at his forehead before he blacked out.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Dean paced furiously, the pain in his lower body all but forgotten. Rufus had ordered him to stay in his room while he made calls to other associates, but less than an hour had passed and Dean was already going stir crazy. “Damnit, Sam,” he muttered, flexing and releasing his fists. “Where the fuck are you?”

 

He barely heard Rufus enter the room. “Calm down, Dean,” Rufus ordered, sitting calmly on the soft, well-made twin bed. “I’ve got everyone available out looking for Sam. We’ve got some pretty good connections to both law groups and underground groups. Something’s bound to turn up. Ash ran some checks in the news, and there’s nothing out about catching the school shooter, so if the law got him they’re keeping quiet. Police databases are going to take a bit longer to check, but we’re looking into those as well.” The man sighed, catching Dean’s eyes. “We’ll find him, Dean. No one can hide him from my boys, not forever.”

 

Dean nodded, only half paying attention. “You call Bobby?” he asked, running a shaky hand through his short, light hair.

 

“Yeah, and let me tell you, Bobby’s gonna rip you both a new one when we find him,” Rufus said with a short laugh, absently fingering the Star of David that hung around his neck.  “He told you to tell Sam, if we find him before the old man, that if he’s still alive, he’s not going to be when Bobby gets through with him.” Rufus shook his head. “But I’ve got my people out looking for him. Apart from keeping an eye on the media either for an arrest notice or a crime that fits his MO, there’s not much we can do.”

 

Dean grimaced. “If we’re looking for a crime that fits his MO, we’re going to be chasing every murder that gets reported this side of the Atlantic,” he muttered, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his worn jeans. “You know Sam. He hasn’t got a preferred type, he hasn’t got a preferred place, he hasn’t even got a preferred weapon. It’s one of the things that’s helped us out so much in the past.” Dean flopped down beside Rufus with a frustrated growl. “Damnit, you’re sure there’s nothing we can do?”

 

Rufus raised an eyebrow incredulously at Dean. “You got connections in the media, or with the law, or with the underground, boy?” he asked, shaking his head. “Unless you want to go back to that parking lot and start searching on foot, not much you can do around here. You want to be useful, watch the screens and the internet, though I’ve already got a good number of my guys doing that. More eyes doesn’t hurt, but that’s about the only use I’ve got for you in this one.”

 

The answer was about what Dean had expected, which made it no less frustrating. “Well, if Bobby wants to kill Sam himself, he’s going to have to be happy with whatever remains I leave him.” Dean scowled, turning his mind to anger at his brother’s incompetence—worry and fear would only paralyze him, and anger might actually drive him to get something done. “Can you get me a laptop and a cable connection? I’ve got some news to keep an eye on.”

 

Rufus nodded, rising from the bed with a groan. “I’ll hook you up with the works. Remember, watch it steady, don’t jump to any conclusions.”

 

“I’m not a rookie,” Dean snapped, annoyed. “I know I’m not a trained part of your crime ring, but I’ve done this more than a few times myself.”

 

“Didn’t mean to doubt you!” Rufus exclaimed, raising his hands in apology. “I know you know your shit. You Winchesters might be independents here, but John’s saved my ass and helped with my guys plenty of times.” Rufus shook his head. “I’d be shocked if John didn’t have you boys as well taught as I keep my people. I’m just saying, looking for a mark or an ally is a lot different than looking for someone you care about. It’s a lot harder to be objective with that.”

 

“Sam and I found Dad just fine,” Dean retorted, glowering at the wall. He did not want to think about his father; John would have probably skinned him for losing Sam. This would not have happened if John had still been around—if Sam hadn’t gotten him killed, Dean reminded himself, gripping tight to his anger. “Just get me the stuff. I’m not gonna fuck it up just because it’s my brother we’re looking for.”

           

Rufus nodded, clapping Dean on the shoulder before exiting the room. Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. He’d have to ask Rufus for some whiskey or a beer when he came back with the equipment. “Damnit Sam, you’d better not be dead,” he muttered to the empty room. “I swear, if you’re dead, I’m gonna find you in the afterlife and kick your ass so hard you’ll wish for every other time Dad or I ever punished you here.”


	8. Savior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Cartel's leader decides to trade Sam for a few of their imprisoned members; Dean tracks down Sam with the help of some of Rufus's people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a few minor edits back in chapter two, fixing some things my beta pointed out to me. I don't know why I am putting that here, as they have literally no effect on the greater plot. Not terribly much to say on this chapter itself.

Sam almost wished for the trite cliché of waking with no memory of what had happened or where one was. His head entire body throbbed with pain; it felt as though sand and gravel was embedded in his back, screaming as his tattered shirt brushed against the irritants. Sam shook his head, and noted the feel of rough cloth against his face; it seemed his captors had seemed fit to hood him, as well as shackling him spread eagle to what felt like some sort of vertical board. “Who’s there?” he croaked, his voice cracking as his dry throat scratched and cramped. He wondered how long he had gone without water; unless his keepers had poured water down his throat when he was unconscious, the only thing he had consumed since his capture was Ruby’s blood.

 

“About time you woke up.” Sam twisted his head in the direction of Ruby’s voice—a futile exercise, the material that scratched against his face reminded him. “I was starting to think I might have gone too far.”

 

“Let me out,” Sam demanded, his voice rough and crackling. He needed water; he considered informing Ruby, but pride stopped him. “You might have me all caught up here, but you’re not the only person who’s got people. They’re going to burn you all to the ground when they find you, and trust me, it’s going to be a pleasure to watch.”

 

“Hm, empty threats,” Ruby replied lightly. “They’re not going to get all of us. This is so much bigger than one organization.” Soft fingertips ghosted across his neck, and the material of the hood scratched across his face as Ruby freed his mouth. She pressed a dripping wrist—had she cut herself open again?—to Sam’s lips. “Drink this before I get you anything else,” she ordered, cupping Sam’s chin with her other hand. "I know you want water. This first."

 

Sam was tempted to refuse, but the need for water won out. Defiantly, he sank his teeth into Ruby’s wrist, and was disappointed when she did not flinch. He sucked, pulling her blood down his throat, half-hoping that he could drain her of blood and leave her dead on the floor—but something strange was going on. Even as he sucked and pulled at her wrist, the flow of blood was slowing, much too quickly for him to have drained her. He gasped, lunging forward at her wrist again, a sharp surge of energy rushing through his body as he desperately swallowed the liquid, lapping at her wrist with his dry, coated tongue as the flow of blood petered out. Were it not for the constant pressure of her other hand on his chin, he would have thought that she had surreptitiously switched wrists; he could not find the wound, even as he licked the remnants of blood from her arm.

 

“That’s probably enough for now,” Ruby said, a smug tone lacing her words. Sam spat, a few feeble drops of blood hitting the floor almost directly in front of him. “Water?” she offered, pressing an open bottle to his lips.

 

Sam was too thirsty to be embarrassed at the idea of being fed from a bottle by an impossible captor. He drank, sucking the bottle dry, cheap plastic crackling in around itself. “Go to hell,” he gasped as the water settled uncomfortably in his empty stomach.

 

“Sounds homey,” was Ruby’s reply. “Well, Sam, I do hate to inform you of this, but for the time being, we need our own people, not a reluctant newbie recruit. The powers that be have decided to trade you for some of ours, provided our darling police are willing to trade—which they will be. You are much, much higher profile than a few two-bit drug dealers, after all.” She patted his cheek mockingly. “But don’t worry—death row cases take a long time to go through, and we’ll have you back long before they get you to the chair.”

 

“I’ll be taking the injection, if it’s all the same,” Sam spat, refusing to acknowledge the fear that coiled in his gut at her words. True, in his line of work and entertainment, there was always the possibility of arrest and execution, but the idea of going to trial and prison as the result of a hostage trade was much less honorable, and somehow entirely more frightening, than the result of being caught in an honest arrest. He cursed, furious—in his experience, criminals tended to stick together unless crossed first, and here were these people violating the unspoken code and turning him in for their own benefit. Sam twisted, his powerful arms straining at the cuffs that bound him, but it seemed that even the additive in Ruby’s blood did not give him enough strength to break chains and steel.

 

“Ruby.” Sam turned his hooded head in the direction of the unfamiliar voice.

 

“What do you want, Meg?” Ruby snapped, releasing Sam’s face.

 

“Abaddon’s ready to make the video.” A light pair of booted footsteps crunched as the new figure walked into the room. “Damnit, you fed him blood now, of all times? I don’t know if our restraints will hold when he’s like this!”

 

 “Hey. Abaddon’s orders said to give him the good stuff. I’m making sure that when we come for him again, he’s good and willing to come with us.” Ruby paused for a moment; Sam wished that he could see what was going on between the two women. “I didn’t give him enough to make him a threat, anyways. Just enough to give him that edge.”

 

"Yeah, well, it was still a stupid idea.” The newcomer—Meg, Sam guessed—sighed, exasperated. “Whatever. Pack him up and bring him over to the showroom, will you? The sooner we get Jake and Ava back, the sooner we can move this forward.”

 

""Shut your mouth in front of the newbie,” Ruby ordered sternly. “He doesn’t get to know anything until we get him back.”

 

Sam frowned as he listened to the exchange. Whatever these two women were discussing—or rather, explicitly not discussing—sounded bigger than run-of-the-mill cartel business. Since when were drug cartels so concerned with the freedom of petty drug runners? Unless these Jake and Ava figures were somehow higher-ups, which Sam doubted, he could not understand why this group was going so far out of the way to get them back. Cartels lost members to arrest and police violence all the time, and he had always heard of it being treated as simply another hazard of the trade.

 

Sam felt the chains around his ankles release, only to be fettered together by a pair of slim, soft hands. He kicked out, connecting with something solid, but was rewarded with only the barest grunt of pain. He fell as the shackles on his wrists were released, falling forward onto his face as his bound feet proved to be unable to catch his weight. One of the women—most likely Ruby, he thought—twisted his arms behind him, chaining them together. “See, he restrains easy enough.” Yes, it was Ruby. Sam growled, jerking in her grasp, but her seemingly inhuman hands held him firmly. “Help me carry him? Walking’s going to take forever.”

 

Meg let out an exasperated huff. “You could always let his feet go,” she suggested, nevertheless seizing his legs, sharp nails digging at the skin beneath Sam’s worn jeans.

 

"I don’t feel like tracking him down and putting out an escape call if he makes a break for it.” Ruby’s tone was casually flippant as she wrapped an arm around his upper torso, securing her hand between Sam’s arm and side. “Didn’t you say Abaddon wants him quickly?”

 

“We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you hadn’t given him blood,” Meg grumbled as the two women set off. It was awkward, being carried by two people so much smaller than him. Sam thrashed, still unable to comprehend how two tiny women could be so strong—one of them could probably hold their own against both Dean and himself in a physical fight! He slackened after a few minutes of fruitless struggle, resigned to the bumpy, humiliating ride, carried as he was between two women who it seemed had never learned the art of walking at the same pace. Meg halfway marched forward, while Ruby lagged behind, occasionally breaking into a trot to catch up with the other woman before slowing again. It was jerky and uncomfortable, and once again, Sam cursed himself for ending up in this situation.

 

The chill of air conditioning hit Sam sharply, making him shiver in his captors’ hands. Shade may have protected him from the worst of the heat and dryness in the air, but it had not prepared him for the burst of cold that circulated through the new building. This Abbadon man was clearly high up, he thought wryly, to be able to get such quick results from his underlings, and to have air conditioning in the middle of an illegal camp—and with an organization like this, the camp had to be illegal. Cartels were not known for permanent settlements in the United States, or if they were, Sam had never heard of one.

 

His captors secured him to a sturdy chair, chaining his feet to the legs and his hands behind him, and then wrapping lengths of chain around his body. Apparently, they had learned better than to use something as flimsy as belts; Sam grudgingly gave them credit for that.

 

 “That took longer than expected,” yet another woman said, cruel voice floating out from across the room. “Take the hood off and mask yourselves. Max, get to the camera.”

 

Sam blinked and squinted as blindingly bright light hit his eyes, so long in the dark. Ruby and another woman, who he deduced had to be Meg, positioned themselves behind him, each holding a matching Glock trained to his temple, eyes hardly visible behind dark ski masks. The message was clear; he was their prisoner.

 

A trim, sinister looking woman swayed towards him, her appearance surprisingly casual for a person who he assumed was high up in the organization—either this woman was Abbadon, and was thus far from the thug of a man he had expected, or was someone close to Abbadon, to speak with such authority. Either way, there was little point in speculating. Sam glared up at her, flexing his hands behind his back.

 

“Nice touch with the blood on his chin,” Abaddon said, appraising Sam’s appearance, an eyebrow raised as her gaze swept over him. “Especially with no visible wounds. Makes him look even more monstrous than the media already does.” She gripped his hair and twisted his head around, looking for wounds and markings. “Good thing you kept him intact. I don’t want this one looking like a victim. We need him to look like a merciless killer, or no way the cops will go for the trade.” She leaned down, staring into Sam’s defiant eyes. “Keep that look, Samuel Winchester. Defiant and unrepentant is exactly what we need from you.”

 

Sam bit back a growl, the urge to spit in the woman’s face nearly irresistible. He settled for staring blankly off into space, away from the pale, twitchy boy who scurried into the room, holding a camera trained on him.

 

Abaddon nodded at Meg and Ruby, who shifted in unison, likely to look into the camera. Sam carefully avoided following suit. “If any station to whom we send this video does not air the entire thing, we will kill every employee who works there, and who has worked there in the past,” Meg said impassively, a rather abrupt beginning to the video to Sam’s mind. “You have two particular prisoners in your custody, New Mexico police force. Their names are Ava Wilson and Jake Talley. As you can see, we have a prisoner of our own.” Meg nudged Sam’s face with the gun, glaring a warning at him. Reluctantly, Sam looked into the camera, face impassive. “The infamous school shooter, Samuel Winchester. I know you people want to get your hands on him.”

 

“We propose a trade,” Ruby said calmly, taking over from Meg. “Ava Wilson and Jake Talley for Samuel Winchester. No tricks, no funny business, just a neat, simple exchange of persons. I am sure that you would much rather have a dangerous murderer in your custody than a couple of minor level drug dealers, but that’s up to you, now, isn’t it?”

 

“Clear all the charges against Ava Wilson and Jake Talley,” Meg said, casually rubbing the barrel of the gun against Sam’s temple. “Clear the charges and release them to us. We will give you Sam Winchester. If you do not cooperate, then we will find a use for him much greater than a few petty diners and high schools.”

 

“You have three days from the time this airs to release Ava and Jake with clean records,” Ruby said, placing a possessive hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We will know if you have released them, so do not bother trying to contact us. If three days pass and they have not been released, Sam Winchester will remain with us, and you will wish you were lucky enough to only have to deal with drug problems in your districts.”

 

The pale camera man fumbled slightly in turning the camera off, breaking out into a light sweat. Meg and Ruby ignored him, turning instead to Abaddon. “Was that acceptable?” Meg asked, peeling her ski mask off and folding her hands politely in front of her.

 

“Yes, I believe so,” Abaddon replied casually, taking the video camera from the camera man with two fingers, nails painted red and sharpened into claws. “Take Mr. Winchester to the restrooms, and then put him back in the chair. I want to keep an eye on him myself, until we get Jake and Ava back.”

 

“I’ll take him,” Ruby volunteered, pushing her ski mask up slightly without removing it completely. She unchained Sam from the chair, leaving his wrists and feet bound. “He knows better than to fight me, isn’t that right?” she added, tilting her head up to give Sam a mocking smile.

 

Sam glared in reply, mind whirring as he followed Ruby down a hallway, hobbling in the fetters over a filthy throw carpet and scuffed hardwood. Somehow, at least some of the members of the cartel had some sort of superhuman strength. It seemed unlikely that he would be unable to escape from them. The police, though—the police he could handle. This hostage trade might actually be his best chance at escape.

 

Ruby opened a shabby door and pulled Sam into a small bathroom, surprisingly clean compared to the rest of the building—at least the parts that Sam had seen—but still tinged with rust and mildew. He waited for Ruby to release his cuffs, and was shocked when instead she left him bound and reached around him to unzip his jeans. “Wait—what the hell are you doing?” he demanded, leaping forward, his shin colliding with the toilet, as she slipped her fingers under his waistband and began to tug.

 

“I might be stronger than you, but I’m still not stupid enough to give you your hands back,” she said coolly, tugging his pants down around his ankles. Sam flushed, his face burning; his penis retreated upwards with the shame at being forced into such a vulnerable position. “You’re going to have to sit for this,” she added, stepping back slightly. “I’m not aiming your dick for you.”

 

Any need Sam had had to relieve himself seemed unimportant in this situation. “At least leave the room,” he said, glaring at his captor with as much dignity as he could muster.

 

“No dice,” Ruby replied, shrugging her slim shoulders. “Eyes on you at all times when you’ve got the blood in you. Now hurry up, I do have responsibilities other than baby-sitting you.”

 

Crimson, Sam had to struggle to relieve himself under Ruby’s painfully watchful gaze. He was surprised at the shame he felt as she tugged his pants back to his waist and fastened them for him, and turned his back to the sink to wash his hands for him. He was going to enjoy taking revenge on this pitiful little cartel, he decided. There was no doubt in his mind that even if the police took the bait and made the trade, he would be back to burn the place to the ground, with everyone involved in his kidnap trapped inside. The idea was the only tolerable part of the situation.

 

Ruby led him back to the chair and chained him down in the mercifully empty room. Her thin hands worked quickly, securing him fast. She glanced around, and then pulled a small knife out of her pocket. “One more, for luck,” she whispered, gashing her wrist and shoving it against Sam’s mouth.

 

Sam knew what was expected of him. He drank, and this time, he could feel the enhanced strength, the power, coiling up through his veins as soon as the blood touched his tongue. It was frustrating; he felt the need to move, to test his power and abilities, but the chains held him tightly even in his heightened state. He was horrified to hear a whine rise to his throat when Ruby pulled away too soon, her skin miraculously healing over the wound. The woman smirked, wiping the blood off of Sam’s face with her hand, and licked her fingers clean. “If I don’t see you again before you’re shipped off, remember me,” she murmured, leaning forward and placing a light kiss to Sam’s lips. Sam was too surprised to protest, but when she had left the room, he found it hard to take his mind off of the sensation of her blood flowing down his throat, and her soft lips against his skin.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Dean was sleeping fitfully when Rufus burst into his room with a shout, waking him instantly. “We know where Sam is, and you’re not going to like it,” he informed Dean, wrenching the sheets off of the bed and exposing Dean’s nearly naked body to the cool air. “The six o’ clock news had some video sent in. One of my girls knows the place—we took her in when she escaped from the same people who’ve got Sam.”

 

Dean woke instantly. He practically leapt out of the bed and stumbled to the door. “Show me. Now.”

 

“Turn on the TV,” Rufus said, grimly. “The news isn’t shutting up about it, not on any of the channels. There will be something about it, I bet you half my year’s profits.”

           

Dean reversed direction and seized the remote control from where he had left it on the floor near the television. When he had turned the TV off, it had been on CNN; he flipped the television back on, and was greeted by the sight of a pretty blonde reporter, a still shot of his brother in chains in the background.

 

“—Going to treat with criminals and engage in an actual hostage exchange,” the woman said, her pretty face far too cheery for the early time, and the situation, Dean thought furiously. “The Taft High School shooter, identified as Samuel Winchester, is to enter police custody as soon as the paperwork to release the persons requested in the video goes through. Already, there is public controversy in the streets over the Police Chief Burton’s decision to engage in negotiations with what some are calling a terrorist group. Cassie, how does it look out there?”

 

The channel cut to a young woman standing at the edge of a city sidewalk, and Dean turned the television off with a harsh click. “So, he’s gotten his dumb ass mixed up in a hostage situation,” Dean said slowly, a spike of rage rising in his thoughts. He shook his head—he had promised Rufus that he was a professional, and he had no intention of acting otherwise. He turned to face Rufus, who stood a polite yard away, watching him. “You said one of your people knows where this group is. Have her take me there,” he ordered, turning to his duffel bag and digging out a pair of pants.

 

“I’ve included you in the recon group,” Rufus answered, and Dean felt a rush of gratitude towards the man. “Girl who knows where to find him is named Lily. I’ve got you in her van, and they’re leaving in an hour. Don’t worry about guns—I’ve got plenty on hand, so save your ammo.”

 

"Thanks,” Dean said, dressing in a hurry and half racing into the bathroom to relieve himself and brush his teeth. He dashed out into the hall and down the stairs of the safe house, grabbing a piece of leftover pizza and a coke from the refrigerator—he could have a proper drink once Sam was back in his custody and properly dealt with. He forced himself to eat slowly—getting sick would be a hindrance, and wolfing down his food would not make the hour pass any quicker.

 

Lily turned out to be a quiet, hard-faced young woman about Sam’s age. “He’s your brother?” she asked Dean without preamble. “He ever mention anything strange going on with him? I don’t mean his hack and slash tendencies—we all got those. I mean really weird. Make movies about it and call it fiction sort of weird.”

 

“No?” Dean answered, perplexed, as he followed the woman out to one of Rufus’s many armored vans.

 

“Then he’s either keeping shit from you, or this group made a mistake,” was Lily’s casual answer. “They don’t take anyone prisoner, even if they’re just trading them. They don’t let you go when they get you either. They’re still after me, and I’ll bet they’re going to get Sam back if the cops take him. He’s safer off with us, at least.” She hopped in the driver’s seat of the van, her body alarmingly small in contrast to the enormous seats and extensive, open back. “We don’t have all day. Get in,” she ordered, glaring at Dean.

 

Dean shrugged and climbed into the passenger’s seat. “Got another three to sit in the back. They should be here—oh, I guess now,” Lily said, as the doors to the back of the van slid open, and two men and a woman clambered in.

 

“You good to go, Lils?” one of the men shouted, twisting at a hearing aid in his left ear.

 

Lily grunted, starting the van and pulling carefully out of the driveway. Dean settled back, staring aimlessly out the window. It would be a long ride, but he could occupy himself for hours, planning what he would do to Sam when they found him.

 

It was dark when Lily stopped the car; apart from a break for gas and to use the bathroom, they had driven straight from the safe house to this unassuming little cluster of badly built houses and shacks. If Dean had been asked, he might have said that it was just low income housing, existing on the outskirts of a town as it did. It hardly seemed like a place to keep prisoners. “He’ll be guarded,” Lily said, hopping out of the car and sliding around back. “Here. Shoot first and ask questions later. If you shoot someone with a normal gun and they don’t drop, use these,” she added, gesturing to a rack of guns that lined the side of the van.

 

"What’s the difference?” Dean asked, taking two of the “special” guns and a type of automatic that he was particularly fond of.

 

Lily grinned. “Salt bullets,” she said, holstering two of her own. “You don’t want to ask. Wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyways.”

 

Dean shrugged; Rufus picked up weird ones like anyone else, he supposed. “What’s the plan?” he asked, glancing at Lily for direction.

 

The woman sighed. “Get in as quietly as we can, get him out as quietly as we can, shoot any of the bastards that see us,” she answered. “And don’t lick your hands if you get blood on them!” she added, glaring sharply at the group.

 

Dean shook his head at her vehemence, and tapped his foot, waiting for the rest of the group to choose their weapons. He sighed in relief when Lily gave the signal to proceed, following quietly behind the blonde woman as they crept through the complex.

 

Lily took them around first to the shacks, glancing in each of them, shaking her head each time. Curious, Dean looked in a few himself. They were primarily empty, except for one, where a young man about Sam’s age who could use a shave and a haircut looked up at him. “Let me out, man,” he whispered, meeting Dean’s eyes.

 

One of the men grabbed Dean’s arm as he made for the prisoner. “Not Sam, not our problem,” he hissed, pulling Dean along.

 

Dean blinked a few times; he knew that. Somehow, though, it was as if he had to fulfill the young man’s request; it had not been a desire to help him so much as a physical need to obey him. Out of his line of sight, however, Dean could not understand why he had felt so compelled to free the other prisoner. “Right. Sorry, man,” he muttered, falling back in line behind Lily.

 

Lily threw out an arm, halting the group at the largest of the houses, situated in the center of the shabby complex. “There’s probably going to be guards. Be quiet about this, and don’t fucking split up,” she ordered, pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of her many pockets. Dean made a mental note to invest in a pair of cargo pants.

 

Quietly, Lily moved around to the side of the house, peering in windows until she found an empty room. Dean watched as she layered the window in tape and smashed it with the butt of her gun, pulling the shards aside to unlock and open the window. “Everyone in. Do not leave the room until we’re all there, even if you hear Sam screaming like he’s being murdered,” she commanded.

 

“You sure he’s here?” the other woman in the group asked, hoisting herself over the window ledge and into the room.

 

“Doubt he’d be anywhere else,” was Lily’s reply. Dean nodded; he would have to trust Lily’s knowledge of the complex here. He placed his hands on the windowsill and leapt, pulling his body around and lowering himself as quietly as he could into the room. The two men followed, and Lily brought up the rear, before treading softly to the door and easing it open.

 

The hallway was shabby and smelled of blood. Dean wrinkled his nose as he walked almost directly behind Lily, keeping to the stained, old carpets as much as possible—his boots were loud on hardwood. Lily glanced around when they reached the end of the hall, and, confirming that the entire group was ready, stepped around the corner and out into the open room.

 

Sam sat in the center of the room, asleep, chained to a chair, an olive skinned woman with dark hair only a few feet behind him. She seemed unconcerned, glancing at the group; then her eyes landed on Lily. “Well, well, well. Look who returned,” she purred, rising from her chair and walking around Sam to better look at the group. “Little Lily, come back where she belongs.”

 

“Casey,” Lily growled, her hand straying to one of the special guns. Dean frowned; Lily had said to use those only if regular bullets did not take down their intended target, but Lily was going straight for the salt gun instead? It did not make sense to him. “Why don’t you keep quiet and let us through?”

 

Casey tutted, shaking her head. “And here I thought you might be back to join us. You know we’ll take you back without question. You even brought playthings!” she cried, gesturing to the rest of the group.

 

“Not in the mood!” Lily shouted. There was a bang, and Casey screamed, stumbling backwards and clutching at her shoulder. Dean took the opening to rush over to Sam, a lock pick in his teeth.

 

“Dean?” Sam whispered, awake—the gunshot probably woke half the complex, Dean thought bitterly.

 

“Save it,” Dean muttered, picking Sam’s bonds as quickly as he could. “I will deal with you when we’re safely out of here.”

 

“You _bitch!_ ” Casey screamed, launching herself at Lily only to be met with another gunshot to the face. “You dare use the secrets we taught you against us?”

 

“Pick Sam up and take him out, now,” Lily ordered, face grim and determined, refusing to answer the woman in front of her. “I’m a pretty good distraction, in this instance. Don’t hear from me in an hour, leave me. They’re not getting me alive anyways.”

 

Dean did not question her. He dragged Sam to his feet and pulled, sprinting out of the house with the rest of the group behind him. He was acutely aware of other people in the complex peering out of their doors; a few started to run after them. Dean grasped his automatic tightly, ready to take down anyone who thought they could stop him.

 

“In the back!” Dean shouted, shoving Sam forward as soon as the van came into view. He turned, aiming his automatic at the people behind him, and opened fire as soon as the rest of the recon group had gotten past him. Several of the people from the complex fell; others, despite the rain of bullets that Dean had unleashed, seemed unaffected. “What the hell?” Dean whispered disbelievingly, reaching for one of Lily’s special guns. He shot, and the person he had aimed at screamed, stumbling backwards. “Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered, taking aim at another and backing away quickly. Grateful that Lily had entrusted the spare keys to one of the other members of the group, he leapt into the back of the van with Sam. “Get us out of here!” he shouted up to the driver. “We’ll come back as soon as Lily contacts us!”

 

The driver did not hesitate; before Dean had even fully closed the door, he was peeling away, speeding down the road and out of sight of the complex. Dean sighed, relieved, and allowed himself a moment of weakness; he pulled Sam close to him and gripped him tightly. “You are in so much fucking trouble, everything else I’ve ever done is gonna look like a cakewalk when I’m through with you,” he whispered, but he could not force any venom behind his words. He swallowed hard; he was being weak, and he had to mask it before Sam caught on.

 

Sam allowed Dean to hold him, gripping the sides of Dean’s jacket. “I know,” he whispered, and in that moment he looked small, and Dean was strongly reminded of his status as the older brother. “I know. I fucked up. I’m so sorry, Dean.”

 

“You will be,” Dean whispered, burying his head in Sam’s hair. Perhaps it was weak; he would still have to punish Sam severely and remind him of his place, and of the importance of being careful. For the moment, however, Dean wanted nothing more than to simply hold his brother and cherish the knowledge that he was back, he was safe, and everything was going to be all right.

 

 


	9. Careless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean beats Sam nearly to death for his carelessness, and for the first time in a long while feels the stirrings of guilt. The FBI gets hold of the Winchesters' trail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for more torture scenes! I enjoy being a sadistic bastard. Sorry boys!

The hour was nearly up when the driver got a phone call from Lily, asking to be picked up several blocks over. No one asked her how she had gotten away; after seeing the look on her face, no one wanted to. The drive back to the safe house was silent, and Dean was glad. He needed to sort himself out before he dealt with Sam; weakness could not be tolerated, and at the moment, he was feeling very weak indeed when it came to his brother.

0o0o0o0o0 

Glad as he was to have been rescued, Sam dreaded arriving at Rufus’s. He had enjoyed a week of utter dominance over Dean, but now, the tables had turned; he had earned whatever reprimand Dean chose to give him, and he knew that it would be harsh. He clung to Dean, as childish as it made him feel, reveling in the few short hours where he could garner comfort from his older brother; that comfort would be stripped away entirely when they arrived at the safe house.

 

Too soon, the van pulled up a long, twisting driveway and into an oversized garage filled with a myriad of identical vehicles. Sam and Dean shook hands with the rest of the group, with the exception of Lily, who flatly refused to shake hands with anyone. Sam was not too fussed, but he could tell that Dean was bothered. He wished that Dean would stay and go into some sort of rude rant about niceties, but that was not Dean’s style, and he knew it. When Dean left the garage and walked up the front steps to the large, stately house, Sam followed, dread settling in his stomach like a lead weight.

 

He barely noticed Rufus’s delighted greeting, and could barely get a word out to the irate Bobby on the phone. He wanted to run, to hide, to avoid his punishment, but that sort of pathetic, dishonorable behavior would be even worse than whatever Dean planned to do to him. His eyes never left his brother as Dean walked around the kitchen, thanking Rufus and greeting the few card players at the kitchen table, finally grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels from the bar cupboard and motioning for Sam to follow him.

 

Each stair felt like a step towards his execution. Sam swallowed, following Dean into a small but respectable bedroom, equipped with two twin beds and abundant surveillance equipment. The duffel bag and clothes strewn across the floor confirmed that it was the room he and Dean had been granted for their stay. Sam swallowed hard as Dean locked the door behind them. His instincts screamed at him to run, to beg, to drop into an utterly submissive role and promise Dean anything he desired to avoid whatever plans he had, but he shoved those instincts down, locking his knees and ordering himself to remain standing. Whatever Dean had planned, he deserved it for getting caught in such a stupid manner. He supposed he should just be relieved that Dean did not appear inclined to use drowning as a punishment, the way he had.

 

Dean’s bright green eyes were flat and emotionless as he regarded Sam. A long moment passed, and then Dean sighed, shaking his head. “You fucking idiot,” he said, disdain crossing his features for a brief moment. “Idiot! You could have gotten executed. You could have gotten the rest of us killed!” He strode across the room and punched Sam hard in the cheek.

 

Sam’s head snapped back with the blow, but he willed himself to not make a sound. Dean shook his hand, and reached forward, placing a firm grip on Sam’s throat. “I’m almost inclined to kill you right now and spare us the trouble of having to put up with shit like this again,” he growled, squeezing lightly. Sam balled his fists—he had no right to knock Dean’s hand away after his appalling failure. He gazed at the floor, unwilling to meet Dean’s eyes as Dean glared down at him. “Go put down towels on and around the bed, and strip,” Dean ordered finally, releasing his throat.

 

Towels meant blood. The bottle of Jack Daniels suddenly had a new meaning, Sam realized, wincing. He dug through his own duffel, tossed haphazardly in the corner, pulling out a large towel and spreading it over the bed. Dean’s towel lay in a crumpled heap on the floor; he spread it out next to the bed and stripped, unable to stop himself from trembling. He reminded himself that this punishment was deserved, that short of killing him, nothing Dean could do would be out of line.

 

Dean pushed Sam to his knees at the side of the bed, on the towel, and shoved him forward, exposing his bare back and buttocks. “You keep your ties in your duffel?” he asked. Sam nodded—he had always found it prudent to keep his disguises within easy reach—and forced himself to stay still as Dean dug out a black silk tie, the stains that had caused it to end up at a thrift shop barely noticeable against the dark fabric. He offered Dean his hands, and allowed his brother to tie his wrists together and secure them to the underside of the wooden bed frame.

 

Leisurely, Dean walked around the bed, pulling off his belt and smacking it against his hands a few times. Sam recalled the last beating Dean had given him; he doubted he would get off so easily this time around. Dean twisted the cap off the bottle of whiskey and took a swig, before setting it down on the small bedside table beside Sam. “I’d tell you to count, but frankly, I don’t have a number in mind,” he said, picking up one of the pillow’s that rested on the made bed and tugging off the sham. He wadded it up and reached forward, jamming it into Sam’s mouth. “Let’s not disturb the rest of the house,” he muttered, positioning himself slightly to Sam’s side.

 

The first sting of the belt was painful, but not nearly as hard as Sam had expected. He clenched his fists, willing himself to hold off screaming for as long as possible, as his brother brought the belt down repeatedly across his back, buttocks, and the backs of his thighs. He should have been comforted by the ordinariness of the beating, but instead, it made him nervous. He had screwed up terribly, even worse than when he had talked Dean into bombing the prison; if Dean was sticking to an ordinary beating, he doubtless had something else, something much less pleasant, up his sleeve to accompany it.

 

Individual blows, while unpleasant, were not something that frightened Sam, or even made him flinch. As Dean crossed over the pre-existing welts on his back, however, Sam was hard pressed to keep back whimpers. He bit down hard on the pillow sham as blow after stinging blow rained down on his back.

 

After several minutes, Dean placed the belt down on the bed. “Need a breather,” he explained, sitting beside Sam and running a hand over his raw back. Sam yelped at the sensation, his muscles tensing reflexively. Dean kept a hand on his back and reached over him, picking up the bottle of Jack Daniels and taking a large gulp. “I needed that,” he gasped as he swallowed it, picking up the belt with his left hand. “Playtime’s over, princess,” he warned Sam, bringing the belt down hard on his back.

 

Sam screamed as several of the welts on his back split open, oozing blood onto the towel. Dean delivered another, equally hard blow to his backside, opening up more wounds. Blow after intense blow rained down on Sam’s exposed back; Dean had beaten him many times, but rarely to the point of bleeding, and never for this long. He lost track of the number of times that his brother switched hands, or new wounds opened up on his back. He lost track of his own voice; he was dimly aware that at some point he had stopped screaming, his voice broken and useless from the strain. He could feel himself wavering on the brink of consciousness as Dean struck him repeatedly, which he found strange, as he felt distant, disconnected from his body and the pain. He was dimly aware that the parts of the belt he could see out of the corners of his eyes were stained red, that blood was soaking through the towel and onto the bedspread, that his wrists were scratched and bloody from straining at the tie that bound them—and yet it all felt unreal.

 

Darkness was beginning to encroach on Sam’s vision when Dean finally put the belt down. Sam lay there, wishing that his brother had not stopped; the lack of stimulation allowed his mind to drift back to full awareness, bringing with it the full extent of the pain that he had endured. Sam lay there, panting, praying to any deity that existed that his brother was done with the punishment.

 

Sam flinched as he heard Dean unzip his pants, but his brother made no move to touch him. Sam lay motionless, eyes closed, and Dean’s gasps and moans filled his ears. He supposed his brother was touching himself; he wondered if Dean was getting off on his pain, or if somehow it was part of the punishment. He was not sure how masturbation would add to his own humiliation, but he supposed he should just be relieved that Dean had elected to not fuck his mouth, or worse, take his already shredded backside.

 

Dean moaned, and Sam dimly felt warm, sticky fluid spurt onto his bloody back. He flinched slightly at the sensation, but otherwise laid still. “Got to clean you up now, Sammy,” Dean murmured, and Sam felt a twinge of fear. There was a low clink as Dean picked up the bottle of whiskey, and Sam gritted his teeth, waiting for the sting.

 

The flow of alcohol onto his abused skin was not so much a stinging sensation as a burn. Sam shrieked, eyes rolling back into his head as his nerves screamed in agony. He strained at the tie, cutting deeper into his wrists, and feebly attempted to jerk away from Dean. The movement pulled at his raw back, and he blacked out into merciful unconsciousness.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“Thought you were going to kill him, the way he was screaming,” Rufus said conversationally as Dean plodded down the stairs. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

 

Dean shook his head mutely, walking to the fridge and helping himself to a beer. He slapped a wad of cash down on the table in front of Rufus. “Finished off your Jack,” he explained, flopping down into an empty seat with a sigh. “We’re gonna have to stay here a few days. No way he’s moving.”

 

“What did you do?” A scrawny man with an all too good-natured face looked curiously at Dean from across the table. “It sounded like whatever you were doing was killing someone. Are you one of Rufus’s famous interrogators?”

 

Dean shook his head, popping the top off his beer with his teeth and draining half of the bottle before replying. “That’s my brother,” he said by way of explanation. “Fucked up and got himself in a bad situation. That was his punishment.”

 

“Oh!” The man’s eyes widened with something that Dean would have almost called excitement. “You’re Dean! And I guess that was Sam. I heard about you guys. Bobby hired me to track Sam down, but you guys found him first, so I’m out a job. Still got my up-front though. I’m Garth,” he said, stretching out a bony hand across the table. “Professional bounty hunter.”

 

Dean snorted, shaking the man’s hand politely. He doubted that he was a bounty hunter; the man had the build of a weed, and could be taken down with a single punch from the looks of him. “Yeah, I’m Dean,” he grunted, taking a swig of his beer. “So, bounty hunter. You work with whoever will hire you, or just us?”

 

“Mostly whoever will hire me,” Garth said with a cheesy grin. “People I’ve met are off limits when law-abiding citizens bring me in, though. I don’t like betraying my friends or anything.” He gave Dean a thumbs up. “Looks like you’ve made that list now! I guess Sam makes it too, even though I haven’t actually met him yet.”

           

“Good to know,” was Dean’s reply. He could not bring himself to care; Garth would not have been a threat anyways, from the looks of him. He was much more worried about Sam, unconscious on his stomach upstairs, whipped raw. Dean could hardly stand to look at his brother; barely a scrap of skin remained on his back, and his legs were hardly in better condition. It had to be done, he reminded himself. He knew it had to be done; so did Sam, and he knew his brother would not hold a grudge upon waking. And he would wake—he had to. Dean would not let his wounds get infected, and he had not lost enough blood to truly be in danger…

 

Lost in thought, Dean was startled when Rufus plunked another beer in front of him. “Don’t worry about drinking me out,” he said kindly, patting Dean on the shoulder. “You go on ahead and get wasted. We’ll keep an eye on Sam, make sure he doesn’t get sick.”

 

Dean nodded gratefully, downing the rest of his beer and cracking open another one. An unpleasant feeling was rolling through his gut, one that felt suspiciously like guilt, and if he had to drink himself unconscious to avoid it, then that was exactly what he was going to do.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

It took Sam nearly three weeks simply to be able to stand again. During that time, Dean cared for him, cleaned his wounds, and kept him in the loop with news stories pertinent to them—and there were many. A nationwide man hunt had been called on Sam, and on his unknown captors. The media was in complete turmoil, Dean thought wryly, and he had to admit, it never got old, seeing Sam’s face flashed across the television, captioned with the word “wanted”. John would have been proud.

 

The media attention eased some of Dean’s guilt at beating Sam into a non-functioning state. It was too dangerous to travel, even if they stuck to back roads and committed no crimes. Sam was edgy, stuck in one place; he wanted to leave the safe house as soon as possible, and Dean was glad to have an excuse to lay low, even though he was developing cabin fever himself.

 

Sam claimed that a part of his edginess was the dreams that were bothering him; dreams so vivid, he could swear they were real. He insisted that on the road, he could at least dream about new places and experiences, rather than being stuck in one place with nothing but his mind to frustrate him. Dean found this ridiculous; Sam was clearly just looking for an excuse to leave as early as possible.

 

Still, he could not keep Sam in the house, healing, forever. Two months after Sam’s ordeal, media attention had turned almost exclusively to a supremacist group that was rearing its head, and Sam’s back had healed almost entirely; it was with resignation that Dean agreed that they could head back out on the road, and turn their attention back to travel and continuing their family legacy, rather than hiding out at Rufus’s like cowards. There was no more reason to stay, so despite his misgivings, Dean turned his attention from keeping Sam hidden at Rufus’s to keeping a low profile while enjoying the open road and the lawless life.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“Dean, it’s been months,” Sam said, tossing a pleading look at his brother, who did his best to ignore it. “Months, man. There’s no way I’m still a priority. Can we please just travel like we used to, without all this lying low and sleeping in the car? At least get a motel room instead of sleeping in back lots and stealing food. Come on, man, there’s literally nothing to worry about, especially if we keep moving around.”

 

Dean glared at his brother, twisting his neck, sore and cramped from a month of sleeping in the driver’s seat. “You really want to risk it?” he asked, releasing a kink in his spine with a satisfying pop. “You like the idea of prison, man? You’d be someone’s bitch in a week, and I’d be in constant solitary for killing everyone who tried to fuck with you.”

 

“We’re not going to end up in prison,” Sam groaned, frustration seeping into his voice. “Even if we did, it would be a hell of a lot more honest than just skulking around in the back roads, pretending we don’t exist just to keep some crummy cops from peeing themselves. You really want to spend the rest of our lives in hiding? We can take on the entire world when we try! So what if a few rookies with a badge get a couple shots in at us? They’re not going to take us down for good.”

 

“Man, cabin fever’s got your brain completely cracked open,” Dean muttered, staring sullenly out the window. A motel room sounded like heaven. Clean sheets, a soft bed, access to a Laundromat to wash their filthy clothes—it was tempting, he had to admit. “Okay, fine. We can get a motel. But if we get the slightest whiff of cops on our asses, we’re done with anything public. Any hint that they’re after us again, it’s back to sleeping in the car and getting our fun with truck stop hookers, got it?”

 

“Got it.” Sam grinned, face brighter than it had been in weeks. “What say you we celebrate this, okay?”

 

“What do you have in mind?” Dean asked cautiously, frowning.

 

“Just something harmless. A bang, a boom, no witnesses, no one to stop us.”

 

Dean chewed his lip thoughtfully. “What the hell,” he said finally, pushing the keys into the ignition and enjoying the welcome sound of his baby roaring to life. “Need something to break the monotony, I suppose.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

_The woman’s hair was red, so red that Castiel could have sworn all things of that color had to have been dyed in such a way by coming in contact with her. And the man was small, so small, he should have seemed insignificant, yet his presence seemed to fill the entire space, eclipsing both Castiel and the red haired woman. He wanted to dance, to call them out of their serious discussion, to bring them into his delight and joy, but no matter how he called, they never seemed to hear him. Even when they addressed him, it was without looking at him or responding to his calls._

_“Castiel,” the woman said, “We need you to come back to us. Surely father has forgiven you by now! We need everyone we can get. Please, I know you can hear me. This is urgent.”_

_"Lucifer is on the prowl,” said the man, “and our numbers are too few. How many warriors have we lost already to infighting and treachery? There are so few of us left that can be trusted. Castiel, you know I love a good joke and some old-fashioned pranks as much as the next angel—okay, fine, more than the next angel—but I’m deadly serious right now. Come back to yourself. We need all the warriors we can get.”_

_“I can’t,” Castiel protested, but neither the woman nor the man seemed to hear him. He cursed, reaching for first the man, then the woman, but his hands passed through both of them. “Listen to me! I can’t come back, not like this! Not on my own!”_

_They did not hear him. “You were always close to Lucifer,” the woman said, “even before he fell. Do you have any idea what he is planning?”_

_The man sighed, and Castiel wondered how he knew that the serious expression on his face was uncharacteristic. “I have no idea, but I can guess that this is another one of his attempts to completely destroy humanity. Unfortunately, he’s getting further this time than he ever has before, and we’re losing people. Metatron and Samandriel are missing, Castiel has been cast out, and no one has been able to contact Naomi or Zachariah in months.”_

_The woman nodded. “You were always closer to Castiel than I was, despite your opposite natures,” she said finally. “I will search for Metatron and Samandriel. You must find Castiel. Bring him back into the Garrison. We have work for him.”_

Jimmy woke with a start, his hands clenched around the simple wooden cross that was all he had of his life before his memory began. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “I’m Jimmy,” he said aloud, firmly attempting to convince his conscious mind. “I’m Jimmy Novak. I had my driver’s license and social security card on me when they found me. They found my birth certificate. I have always been named James Novak.” He squeezed the cross, taking comfort in the warm, familiar grain of the smooth, polished wood.

 

His alarm clock was due to go off in only fifteen minutes. Jimmy rose, dressing at a leisurely pace and sitting down to a breakfast he hardly tasted. These dreams—dreams of strange faces, of people speaking of war and Lucifer and angels—were becoming more and more frequent. Dreams in which he was called Castiel, and knew himself by that name, were a nightly occurrence by now. Jimmy supposed that he had once read a book or seen a movie with a similar cast of characters, but Google’s results for the name Castiel came up with woefully little. He sighed. There was little use in dwelling on the matter. He had an hour to get to the office, and traffic was always heavy at this time in the morning.

 

The drive was uneventful, but Jimmy could not shake the feeling that something important, something terribly wrong, was going to happen, and soon. He shook his head, parking in a designated employee spot and quietly heading into the building, showing his badge to the security guard and heading straight to the employee lounge to start up the coffee maker.

 

Several uneventful hours passed, and Jimmy began to think that his worries were unfounded. He took his lunch break quietly, and was considering leaving the office early when Henriksen dropped by his desk, face grim. “We’ve been called in,” he said, shaking his head angrily. “Just when you think someone’s off the radar and gone for good, they crop up with something major.”

 

“Samuel Winchester?” Jimmy asked, unsure why he thought it had to be that particular criminal. They had looked into several other offenders who had disappeared from public view recently, but for some reason, he knew that it was Winchester and his partner, as surely as he knew that they were the two men he had overheard months ago at the diner, before the Kentucky prison explosion.

 

“Spot on,” Henriksen said grimly. “Winchester and his partner have officially made the FBI’s most wanted. We’re keeping it extremely low key, though. Somehow, they always vanish as soon as they know someone could be onto them. They slipped up covering their tracks on this one, though.”

 

“How did we get their trail?” Jimmy rose, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair.

 

“Gunfire reported at a bus station in Indiana,” Henriksen replied grimly, leading the way out of the building. “No survivors, but one of the stores nearby has an outside security camera. They drove past it about a minute after the shootings, and I’ll bet you drinks for a month that the bullets will match their guns. Got their faces, got their plates, and we need to move if we’re going to latch onto their trail before they get too far.”

 

“Do you think they’ll change the plates?” Jimmy asked, filing away the information.

 

“Yeah, but there aren’t too many black ’67 Chevy Impalas on the road these days,” Henriksen answered. “And we’re not the only pair sniffing around for them. We’ve got a section, and police in all the counties out three states either direction are on high alert and conducting their own investigations. The man grinned mirthlessly. “They’ve trapped themselves good. We’re not letting them slip away this time."

 

 


	10. And Then There Were Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean have a confrontation with two FBI agents that leaves someone dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While editing this, I could easily tell that I wrote this chapter at three in the morning on less than five hours of sleep. Unfortunately, I'm still not doing too well in the sleep department, so my editing is probably pretty shoddy. Feel free to rip this chapter to shreds.

Sam’s face was beautiful, contorted with exertion and streaked with blood, Dean thought, appreciating his brother’s visage from his perch on a barstool twenty feet away. “Hey bartend, get me another beer,” the ordered, snapping his fingers at the scrawny, terrified man behind the bar. Sam had dragged the bodies of every single one of the bar’s patrons in front of the main door, blocking the man from easy escape, and the police from forced entry. “And one for my friend as well,” he called as the bartender knelt, shaking. “No funny business. I know you keep a gun under the counter.”

 

The bartender emerged with two bottles of Miller Light, scooting them timidly across the table towards Dean. “Cheap shit,” Dean commented lightly, flashing the man a charming grin. “Sammy, come have a drink with me! You’ve already gotten everyone except this lovely young man here.”

 

Sam shrugged and walked over, deftly stepping around puddles of blood, and placed his gun carefully on the floor next to the bar. “We letting this one live?” he asked, casually cracking open his beer.

 

“Yeah, I got his name and social from his wallet. He gives our description to the cops, his whole family is dead,” Dean replied smirking up at his brother. “Figured as long as he behaves and keeps the booze coming, hell, might as well let him live for his good behavior!”

 

“Fair enough,” Sam said, shrugging and taking another sip. “Think I got that stress out of my system. We should do this more often.”

 

Dean nodded. “Yeah, you’re telling me. I didn’t even get a shot in, you hogging this place. Your kill streak’s going to pass mine at this rate,” he said, sending his brother a mocking glare that prompted a cheeky grin from Sam. “Can’t let that happen. You’re the little bro and all!”

 

Sam smirked, raising his middle finger good-naturedly. The smile faded abruptly from his face as he cocked his head, listening. “Dean, do you hear that?” he asked, face twisting into an angry frown.

 

“Hear what?” Dean asked, sending Sam a curious, slightly worried glance.

 

"Sirens.” Sam bent down to retrieve his gun, one eye on the door. “How close is this place to the police station?”

 

“Sirens?” Dean asked, disbelieving. “No. Hell no. No one could have called…” his voice trailed off and he shot a glare at the bartender, who backed up, terrified face ashen. “You little shit,” he growled, vaulting over the bar and kneeling, looking at bottles of bear loaded in ice, an innocuous white button hooked to a small device below the edge of the bar. “Shit!” Dean yelled, leaping to his feet. He seized the frightened bartender by the neck, wrenching his head to the side with a gratifying snap. “Sam, there’s a fucking panic button below the bar! We’ve got to get out of here!”

 

Sam nodded and reached out, pulling Dean back over the smooth black top of the bar. “There’s a back door through the kitchen. I didn’t block that one. We can probably make it if we run,” he said, releasing Dean’s hand and bolting. Dean followed at a run, fumbling around in his coat pocket for the keys to the Impala as he did so.

 

 “Wipe your face on your jacket. We’ll burn it soon as we get the chance,” Dean ordered, unlocking the car and throwing himself into the driver’s seat. Sam had barely closed the door before he sped off, speed limits and seat belts be damned. “We’ll grab our shit from the room and haul ass, no questions asked. Sleep in the car for a few nights and we should be fine,” he babbled, wrenching the steering wheel around to switch lanes.

 

“Dean, calm down,” Sam ordered, smearing blood across his face with the inside of his brown denim jacket. “We’re not getting caught this time. There’s no eyewitnesses, and—fuck!” he shouted suddenly, slamming a fist on the dashboard. “The cameras. We didn’t have time to destroy the fucking cameras!”

 

Dean cursed, slamming on the horn as he merged, almost colliding with a truck in the lane next to him. “Son of a bitch! Okay, we’ll lay low again for a while. Stay with Bobby, keep our noses clean, the works.” The motel was only another few minutes’ drive. Dean thought fast—damnit, Sam’s computer was there, and no way could they afford to let it fall into the hands of the authorities. Skipping the room and leaving their possessions was not an option. “Stay in the fucking car, I’ll be right back with our stuff,” he ordered as he sped into the parking lot, throwing the car into park and jumping out, keys still in the ignition.

 

“Hell no. I’m not going to be a sitting duck out here!” Sam shouted, reaching over to turn off the car, angrily following Dean into the shabby little room, shutting the door behind him. Dean shook his head; he could swear he still heard sirens, and he desperately stuffed clothes into his bag. Sam grabbed his laptop and began hunting for the charger. “There’s no way they can track us. We left before—”

 

The door burst open and a muscular black man, the type who held down a desk job but kept in shape at the gym, shoulded his way into the room, gun aimed and ready. Sam ducked behind the bed as Dean whirled around, raising his gun in turn at the man. “FBI! Put your weapons down and keep your hands where I can see them!” he shouted, stepping slightly to the side as a slight, blue eyed man, his bulletproof vest badly secured over his lean chest, stepped behind him, pointing a gun of his own at Dean.

 

“Samuel Winchester, we know that this is your partner, and that you’re in this room as well. Come out with your hands empty and visible,” the blue eyed agent said, his voice gravely low, with a tone and enunciation that spoke of high levels of education. Dean could not help but hold back a laugh; he sounded like a preacher masquerading as the law to frighten his congregation, or something else utterly inane.

 

“Isn’t that cute, Sammy? I think I’ve been downgraded to your lackey,” Dean joked, carefully watching the two agents. _Come on Sammy, come through for me,_ he thought, holding his gun steady. Neither arrest nor death were on his agenda for the day.

 

“It’s only cute because it’s true,” Sam replied, voice slightly muffled by the bedskirt. “Drop!” he shouted suddenly, leaping to his feet and opening fire.

 

Dean threw himself to the ground, bullets whizzing past his head. From the crack under the bed, he saw the first agent fall, clutching at his chest, cursing. Dean rolled under the bed to better avoid his brother’s gunfire, pulling up the fabric just enough to shoot the first FBI agent square in the head. The second one fell to his knees as he shot, unleashing a beautiful, angelic cry that was entirely at odds with his gravelly voice.

 

Dean rolled out from under the bed, dust and lint clinging to his hair and jacket, testimony to the motel’s shoddy cleaning set up. Sam had tossed the automatic, now entirely out of ammunition from near-daily use, to the side, and was walking over to the prone, blue eyed agent. “You still got ammo?” he asked Dean, grabbing the man by the hair and wrenching his head back. Dean could see blood pooling around the sides of the man’s formerly crisp white shirt, testimony to a bullet to the shoulder.

 

"Yeah, enough to get us out of here at least,” Dean answered, dusting his jacket off as best he could before reaching under the bed to retrieve his gun.

 

“Then put a bullet in this one and let’s go,” Sam ordered, pulling his head back further.

 

Dean shrugged and cocked the gun, staring the agent straight in the face. How a man of the law could look so pure, so entirely innocent, was beyond him. His bright blue eyes looked to still have the innocent hope of a fresh recruit; his striking face was yet unmarred with care lines and shadows. From the looks of him, this was his first actual mission; no doubt he ordinarily worked a desk. Dean hesitated, and took his finger off the trigger.

 

“Let’s keep him,” he suggested, sliding the gun into his pocket holster. “Hell, I’ve always wanted a pet. This one looks as good as any.” He stepped forward, reaching out and seizing a handful of the agent’s hair himself.

 

“Dean, that is the stupidest, most reckless thing you’ve asked for in—actually, ever,” Sam replied, shooting him an incredulous look. “We can’t carry around a freaking FBI agent! That’s the biggest liability I’ve ever heard of!”

 

“Aw, but look at this face!” Dean cooed mockingly, running his forefinger over the man’s cheek. “So pretty and innocent and _fun._ Fine, if pet doesn’t work for you, does serving boy and kept law-fucker do the trick? Have him keep us on the edge of the law’s radar and help us evade them, and be around for stress relief? Because, no offense Sammy, but your stretched-out ass isn’t what it used to be for that.”

 

“You are crude and disgusting,” Sam retorted, raising an eyebrow at him. “My ass is in perfect condition. Yours, on the other hand—”

 

Dean clocked the FBI agent in the temple with his gun. “We’ll decide this on the road,” he said as the man slumped forward, unconscious. Dean tossed Sam his keys; his brother caught them with minimal fumbling. “You drive. I’ll take goody here,” he said, hoisting the smaller man over his shoulder. “You know, sit in the back with him, keep him calm—we’ve got rope and shit in the back, yeah?”

 

"Dean, he’s an FBI agent. He’s bound to be covered in tracking gear,” Sam argued, trying to hand him back the keys.

 

“Yep, and we’re the fabulous Winchesters, fully capable of pulling off to the side of the road and stripping him at first chance,” Dean retorted, pulling open the door and walking out. “Now come on before their back-up gets here.”

 

“Of all the stupid things,” Sam muttered, following Dean out to the car. He popped the trunk and tossed Dean a roll of duct tape and a length of rope, before striding to the driver’s seat and pulling open the unlocked door. Dean heaved their prisoner into the back and clambered in, neglecting his seat belt in favor of getting to work on their captive.

 

“Seriously Sam, this guy could be useful,” Dean said when they were safely on the freeway, rolling duct tape around their prisoner’s mouth and hands with efficient, practiced fingers. “He knows from the inside how the FBI work, and that probably means he knows what the grunt level cops look for too. We train him up good, he helps keep up invisible and off the law’s radar. Other bonuses: we have someone around to keep shit clean and be available for stress relief. There’s really not a downside to this.”

 

“You only want him because you think he’s cute and you want to break him,” Sam shot back, pulling off on the nearest exit. “You know what? Fine. Keep him, but don’t get attached. First time we need to kill a hostage to prove we’re serious, he goes.”

 

Dean grinned triumphantly. “Awesome. He’s like the dog I never wanted, only with no tail and he probably won’t lick my face.” Dean paused; Sam groaned in pre-emptive annoyance at the punch line. “Unless I want him to.”

 

"Completely disgusting, that’s what you are,” Sam muttered, steering the car off road and into a patch of trees. “Hurry up. He’ll probably come out of it soon.”

 

Dean grinned and tore the captive’s dress pants from his frame, slipping out his wallet and tossing the clothes out the window. There was a loud thud, most likely from a cell phone, or a walkie-talkie, or both. He had to cut off the bulletproof vest and shirt, tossing them out the window with the pants and taking a moment to admire the agent’s lean chest, hard with muscle and unblemished save for the clotted wound in his shoulder. “Got a nice build on him,” he commented as Sam drove ahead, merging back onto the road and speeding forward to find the next highway exit.

 

"My point stands. You just wanted a breakable little chew-toy,” Sam replied, eyes flicking to the backseat. “He is built pretty nicely, though,” the man admitted, before turning his attention back to the road. “So, find some abandoned house a state over and get to work with breaking him?”

 

“It’s off season, so there are probably empty vacation houses all over the place,” Dean said, nodding in agreement. He placed a hand on the prisoner’s smooth, solid chest, kneading slightly, admiring the feel of skin and muscle under his hand. “Let’s find a secluded one, make sure that no one’s around to hear screaming or any shit like that.”

 

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Sam said snarkily, merging back onto the highway. “How do you think they found us in the first place?”

 

Dean shrugged. “Tailed us, most likely,” he answered flippantly. “Could be they saw us leaving the parking lot. Noticed anyone following us?” he asked, picking up the agent’s wallet and flipping it open. James Novak. He would not have expected such a striking man to have such a plain, ordinary name.

 

“Well, no one pulled off the exit after us, so I think we’re good.” Sam glanced in the rearview mirror. “I’ll keep an eye out to be safe. You keep an eye on mister FBI back there, make sure he doesn’t make a scene.”

 

As if reacting to Sam’s mention, the agent shifted, eyes opening blearily. He spoke, voice incomprehensible and muffled behind the layers of duct tape. “What was that? Sorry princess, didn’t quite catch that,” Dean snarked, placing a possessive hand on the agent’s chest. “So, James, is it? Think you can keep a lid on whatever you want to say ‘til we stop for a breather? Don’t want to waste good tape letting you speak only to have to gag you again.” Dean smirked, running his fingers through feather-soft black hair, his grin widening as the man shifted uncomfortably at his touch.

 

“You’re having way too much fun with this,” Sam muttered from the front, passing the slow moving van in front of them. “Stop taunting the prisoner and focus on keeping him under control, okay?”

 

“Hey, I can multi-task,” Dean protested, trailing his hand across the agent’s chest, laughing inwardly as the man stiffened and twisted feebly away from his fingers. “Besides, he needs to know who’s boss from the get-go. Don’t want him getting any ideas that he has something on us.”

 

Sam sighed, flicking the radio to a top-forty channel in disdainful response. Dean shook his head, ignoring the music in favor of focusing on his stoic little captive, so clearly uncomfortable behind his impassive mask. Dean was sure that when he broke, it would be tragically beautiful, and he looked forward to being the one to bringing on that sort of heart-break.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Jimmy’s heart thudded, alarmingly quick and insistent in his chest. Henriksen was dead. The whole thing, the whole investigation—it was falling apart before his eyes. Henriksen had been killed by Samuel Winchester, the man who they had celebrated being so close to bringing in, and now it seemed that Winchester’s partner was keeping him, doubtless as some sort of hostage. They had underestimated the men, that much was clear. Somehow, even knowing of their criminal background and ruthless natures, Jimmy had never thought that they would need back-up in bringing the two in; bulletproof vests and guns should have been enough to stop them before they had the chance to do any damage. Instead, he was in their grasp, bound, a bullet in his shoulder and a dead partner on the motel floor miles away.

 

He tested the bonds on his hands, clasped together behind his back. They were tight, carefully secured, and ended far enough up on his arms that he could not reach the end of the tape with his fingers. Even if he could free his mouth from the gag, he knew that on a busy highway (they had to be on the highway, or some other main road, the car was moving much too quickly for residential streets) no one would be able to hear a call for help. Resigned for the time being, he lay quietly across his captor’s lap, struggling to keep from flinching as possessive hands absently roamed across his torso and face.

 

It was hours before Winchester pulled off on an exit, slowing drastically as the road curved underneath them. Jimmy grunted, twisting his head to try to catch a glimpse of an exit number, and his captor slammed a hand over his face, jamming the back of his head into hard, muscled thighs. “I don’t think so,” he muttered, deep voice low and threatening. “You don’t get to look. You don’t get to be seen. In fact,” he murmured, shoving Jimmy off his lap and onto the floor, “stay there for a little while. You know people; don’t want them spying you through the window.”

 

The floor smelt of ground-in dirt and spilled alcohol. Jimmy grimaced as his face scratched against the dirty fibers of the car floor, head pinned down by a boot on the back of his neck. He laid quietly, wishing that they would stop, if nothing else so that he could relieve himself; his captors seemed intent on getting somewhere safe before they made any sort of detour. He shifted, wiggling until his stomach rested on the raised bump that comprised the floor beneath the middle seat, and stilled as soon as he felt his head brush against the car door. Cooperation was key to getting out of this alive, he reminded himself. He was no good dead. Alive, however, he could learn Winchester’s secrets and methods, and eventually turn them against him. If he thought of his situation as a simple infiltration job, surely it would be more bearable.

 

The sky had been dark for some time before Samuel finally stopped the car. “Past ten houses in this neighborhood have been deserted, and it looks like they go on for a while,” he said, seat creaking as he twisted around to address his partner. “I think it’s safe to play with him here.”       

 

“Awesome,” Winchesters partner said, clearly delighted. “You hear that, mister big FBI man?” he taunted, removing his boot from the back of Jimmy’s neck. “Get to play with you all I want, and no one can hear you scream.” He reached down and seized Jimmy by the shoulder, bodily dragging him from the car. “Come on Sammy, let’s go scope out the house.”

 

Jimmy stumbled, meekly following the man into a small, neatly kept cabin. The house was set on a lake side; a vacation cabin, he guessed. Considering it was a Tuesday night in the fall, it made sense that it was empty, as were the surrounding houses. His chances for quick escape looked grim, especially if the men kept to locations similar to this. Still, he was not without hope; he had training and behavioral knowledge of serial killers on his side. The odds were stacked against him, but he might very well get out of the situation alive.

 

“Put him here,” Samuel ordered, gesturing at the small, wooden table, clearly designed for intimate family breakfasts and dinners with friends. “On his stomach. If you’re going to keep this one, we need to make sure that he knows he’s ours.”

 

“Got it,” Samuel’s partner said, slamming Jimmy face first into the table. Jimmy’s head connected solidly with the wood, and he felt bile rising in his throat. He forced it down—vomiting while gagged never had good results, he knew that. “Go get some restraints and wire from the car. I can hold him.”

 

Jimmy fought to keep from twisting out of his captor’s grasp. He knew that he could escape the man’s hold, but even if he could get out the door and past Samuel, it would be impossible to outrun their car. He sucked in air, breathing hard through his nose, as the partner pulled him further up onto the table, leaving him bent over with his toes skimming the ground, his neck awkwardly hanging off the edge of the surface.

 

The thud of booted feet alerted him to Samuel’s return. Jimmy twisted his head, eyes lighting on a length of rope and a coil of copper wire in the man’s hands. “Tie him up quick,” Sam ordered, tossing the rope at his partner, who grinned and pulled a knife from his pocket.

 

“Don’t squirm,” the man ordered, cutting through the duct tape that bound Jimmy’s wrists. Jimmy clenched his hands, determined to keep from knocking the man out, and allowed him to bind his wrists to the legs of the table, and loop the rope around to wrap it around his thighs. “Think that’s good enough?” he asked, glancing at Samuel.

 

“Yeah, should be fine,” Samuel replied, pulling a knife of his own out of his jacket. “Do you want to do the honors, or should I?” he asked, running a finger along the side of the sharp, shiny blade.

           

“Hell yes I want the honors. I’m the one who wanted to keep him in the first place.” Jimmy felt a chill crawl up his spine at the possessive tone in the man’s voice. He shuddered, and the man above him burst into laughter. “Aw, I think I just scared the law!” he crowed, chortling. “And I haven’t even started yet!”

 

Jimmy jerked as the man ran the edge of the knife slowly, precisely across his lower back, ripping through skin with ease and proficiency. “Easy does it, Fed,” the partner said, laughing, carefully carving a curved line extending from the tip of the first cut down to its bottom. “More you move, more likely I’ll have to do this over again.”

 

Jimmy trembled with rage and pain, clenching his teeth hard as the man picked up the knife and set it down next to his other carving, placing four short, slanted lines that alternated in direction across his lower back. He drew back, and Samuel moved to take his place, carving a single, curved gash down his back and following it with a marking that felt similar to his partner’s second. “Looks like he’s pretty well ours now,” Samuel said, satisfied.

 

“Almost,” the partner answered, patting Jimmy directly on his wounds. Jimmy gritted his teeth, his short cry muffled by the layers of duct tape. “Hand me that wire, will you?”

 

“What do you plan to do with the wire?” Samuel asked, curiously, as his partner removed his hand from Jimmy’s back with a loud squelching noise.

 

The sound of metal on metal grated in Jimmy’s ears. “Just going to put some hand-holds on him. Think of it as some super hard-core piercings,” the man said. Jimmy chanced a look; the man was running his knife over the tip of the wire, sharpening it. He swallowed hard, tensing with dread; no, no, he did not like the idea of having his skin pierced with sharp, unsanitary wire in the slightest.

 

“You sure about that, Dean?” Samuel questioned, displeasure evident in his voice. “I’m not cleaning up the body if he dies of an infection, and I’m not comforting you over losing a toy either.”

 

The partner, Dean, snorted derisively. “Right, because I don’t know how to clean a wound, and I let you die last time I had to beat you,” he replied snippily. Jimmy frowned; was Samuel a coerced partner in this envelope? No, it couldn’t be; the man had shown too much joy and initiative to be the unwilling submissive partner in a criminal scheme. Why, then, would his partner beat him? He would have to keep a further eye on the dynamic between the two, try to puzzle out where they stood in relation to each other, and to the killings.

 

The burn of metal shook Jimmy from his thoughts, as Dean pushed the pointed end of the wire through the skin directly above his shoulder blade. He screamed— _wings no not there no not my wings please—_ and thrashed, jerking forward desperately as the wire slowly, so slowly, pierced through his skin and the upper layer of his muscle, coming out steadily an inch out on the other side. Dean tugged the wire through, repeating the insertion at three other points on his back, until a cold, hard circle of irritating wire lay pierced through Jimmy's skin, resting on his back, raw and agonizing where it brushed against muscle. Jimmy sagged, twitching, his nerves screaming at the intrusion. He felt phantom wings, ridiculous though he had always thought the concept was, twitching and trembling at the intrusion, the pain in the nonexistent limbs somehow even less bearable than the very real, very tormented flesh of his shoulder.

 

“Shit, do we have wire cutters?” Dean asked, frowning at the length of wire left in his hand.

 

“Way to think ahead, Dean,” Samuel remarked drily. “I’ll see if happy little family here has tools in the garage.” He clomped off, leaving Jimmy shaking, covered in blood, exposed and vulnerable in the room with Dean.

 

Dean ran a hand through Jimmy’s short black hair, quietly rubbing the dark strands against the pads of his fingers. “I’m gonna take the gag off now,” the man said quietly, carefully slipping his knife under the layers of duct tape that wrapped around Jimmy’s head. “Scream or fight me, and you’ll get to see exactly how cruel I can be.”

 

Jimmy hissed in pain as the knife turned, slicing through the tape, which Dean ripped off his face, peeling away a layer of skin and more than a few strands of hair. “There’s no need to do this,” he said, licking his lips cracked, bleeding lips, his deep voice steady in spite of the panic he felt. “My situation is clear. I don’t have any options but to resign myself to life as your hostage.” The tang of blood was heavy in his mouth; he swallowed and ran his tongue over his shredded lips, wincing at the sting.

 

“Yeah?” Dean whispered, leaning forward and licking Jimmy’s earlobe. Jimmy squirmed, willing himself to not turn away from the revolting and invasive action. “You going to do whatever I say, now, Jim? Going to be my little bitch, help me and my brother on our sprees?”

 

Brother? Jimmy had to admit, he had not seen that one coming. There was a dynamic between the two murderers that was decidedly not brotherly. Still, that was something useful to know, if he was to understand and take down his captors. “I don’t really have a choice here, do I?” he asked, deadpan.

 

“Aw, fast learner here,” Dean teased, nipping lightly at Jimmy’s neck. The bound man tensed, closing his eyes and turning his head away slightly. “So then, pet, your name is James? You go by James? Jim? Jimmy?”

 

Jimmy hated hearing his name roll off the sadistic man’s tongue. It made him feel far too powerless, too decidedly human in the man’s grasp. About to respond, he paused with his mouth slightly open, the memory of his frequent dreams, dreams in which he was some sort of powerful being, flashing through his mind. “Castiel, actually,” he replied, swallowing hard. Castiel was not human; he was strong, he was righteous, and he would not break at the hands of psychotic killers. Somehow, he had to find a tangible way to channel that strength himself, to take his dream identity and meld it into his reality. “I prefer to be called Castiel.”

 

Dean hummed against his skin, unfazed. “Castiel, huh? Pretty pretentious nickname there,” he said, nipping lightly at Jimmy’s neck. “Okay, then. Name suits you better than James anyway. Castiel—sounds like an angel.” The man bit down hard on his neck; Jimmy yelped, squirming. “Have to say, I like the idea of breaking an angel into pieces.”

 

Jimmy clenched his teeth, forcing himself to relax as the other man ravaged his neck. He had to be strong; he had to make it through this perilous situation alive. If that meant letting himself, letting Jimmy go, then so be it. He would become Castiel. He would become righteous, and strong, and powerful.

 

Jimmy might not have the power to hold up in the clutches of sadistic serial killers, but Castiel did. He sighed, and sank into his mind, quietly letting Jimmy go as he steeled himself for what was to come.

 

 


	11. Terrorism and Mayhem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new supremacist group/terrorist cell is gaining national attention; Sam and Dean scoff at the notion, without realizing exactly how powerful this group is. Sam and Dean pull off another murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Supremacist groups, torture, murder, hand jobs. That's it, that's the chapter.  
> Next chapter is basically shameless smut with just enough plot to justify it. I know, I can hear you all complaining very loudly at me.

“So, it’s been a long time since we hit North Dakota,” Sam said, casually thumbing through an atlas of the United States, Dean’s breath hot in his ear as he leaned over him. “Actually, have we ever hit North Dakota? If we did, it sure wasn’t too memorable.”

 

“I’m coming up blank,” Dean replied, nipping affectionately at his brother’s ear. Sam could not help but smile; in the weeks since Dean had brought in his new toy, he had become markedly more relaxed and cheerful, prone to fits of drinking that had nothing to do with depression and renewed enthusiasm for striking fear into the country’s heart. “That’s weird. All the times we stopped at Bobby’s, and we never bothered to drive north a few hours? I say we give it a go.” He stamped his booted foot down on a chain that ran from the leg of the table all the way to the back of their prisoner, huddled in a corner. “What do you think, Cas? Think we can safely go get our kicks in North Dakota?”

 

Sam turned, raising a warning eyebrow at the captive agent, legs curled protectively against his bare stomach, fettered hands wrapped around his knees. The chain that looped through the wire in his back jangled as Dean shook it with his foot. “Hello, Castiel! Do I have to beat an answer out of you?” his brother shouted, jovial voice tinged with menace. Sam felt a surge of pride in his brother; he had never known the man to take pleasure in causing pain outside of punishment for severe transgressions, and yet here he was, taking delight in tormenting a helpless prisoner. It was truly a sight to behold, and one that made Sam ache to take his brother right there on the table, no warning, no punishment, just strict, consuming passion. Still, he held back his desires. Sex lost all meaning when it became a simple act of drive and desire; fucking Dean for pleasure would mean approximately as much as fucking clients had during his stint as a prostitute.

           

Castiel looked up, his haggard face pale, shadowed with stubble, prominent bags sagging under his eyes, leaving his beautiful face wretched and pitiful. “I—yes, North Dakota is safe,” he said quietly, training his eyes on the floor, a red flush of shame staining his cheeks. “I would recommend changing your MO slightly, so that the police are less likely to link it to you. That way, you will be able to keep it as a safe state if you ever need to go somewhere to hide in a hurry.”

 

“I like him. You can keep him,” Sam declared, grinning at his brother. “So, North Dakota. What do you want to do? Take out a restaurant, hold up a shopping mall, bludgeon some businessman to death?”

 

“How about all of the above?” Dean replied, smiling as he ruffled Sam’s hair. “Man, you need a haircut,” he declared, smacking his brother lightly on the shoulder.

 

“Ah, fuck you. I’m getting it long enough to put into a ponytail. You’re just jealous that your greasy mop looks like crap when it’s long,” Sam bantered back, shoving his brother playfully. “Besides, forget about hair. The world is ours! I want to get moving!”

 

“Yeah, yeah, always the eager one.” Dean shook his head, but the smile never left his face. “Gonna check the news to make completely certain North D is safe, then we’ll head out, okay?”

 

Sam nodded, handing his brother the remote. Dean flicked on the television to a news station, currently showing a pretty, red haired woman in the middle of reading from a page.”

 

“—And no one who fits my specifications shall be spared. Bow before me, pitiful humanity, and claim me as your master, and I will allow you to exist as slaves, for so long as you prove your usefulness. And to all of those who are greater than human, rejoice, for you will be masters in the new world with me. Signed, the One Who Brings Light.” The woman placed the letter down on the table and smiled toothily at the camera. “Well, Pete, it looks like the One Who Brings Light is growing more insistent in his threats towards humanity. What can you tell us on the streets?”

 

The screen cut to a balding, middle aged man with a dark, scruffy beard and a pot-belly. “Well, Judith, it seems that people aren’t taking this group very seriously! Care to give us a word, sir?” he asked, holding the microphone out to a thin, slightly Hispanic looking man, probably a college student, judging by his fraternity shirt and backpack, Sam thought.

 

“Man, this guy’s just looking for attention. He hasn’t done anything, so why worry about him?” the young man said, shrugging his shoulders. “I think people are getting all worked up for nothing. You want to focus on creepy supremacist groups, we should focus on the KKK or Westboro or something. This guy’s probably just some big ass dude in his mom’s basement, smoking weed and looking for attention.”

 

“Thank you sir. You—ma’am, care to tell us what you think about the notes that the One Who Brings Light has been sending to the media?” the reporter asked, holding his microphone out to a very pink middle aged lady with badly bleached blonde hair.

 

“I think he’s calling Christians to rally against the secular culture that has infected society,” the woman said, leaning forward and holding up a large, ornate cross. “Jesus is calling us to—”

 

“Yes, thank you—and you, madam?”

 

Dean shrugged and turned off the television. “Looks like we’ve had a loony bin escape over this whole supremawhatsit business,” he said, grinning up at Sam. “Terrorists, man! They’re so convenient! No cop’s gonna be out looking for us if they’re busy trying to get their claws in this punk-ass loser.”

 

“Only you would call terrorists convenient,” Sam said, smirking. “I guess it’s pretty true, though. Now come on, can we get moving?”

 

“Sure,” Dean replied, reaching under the table and unhooking Castiel’s chain. “You gonna give us any trouble? Do I have to knock you out again?”

 

Castiel shook his head quickly, staring warily at the chain. “I will need clothes if we’re leaving,” he said hesitantly, staring up at Dean, his blue eyes wide and hopeful.

 

“Yeah, fine. Sam, toss the guy some pants,” Dean ordered, shrugging, coiling the chain around his fist, drawing the prisoner slowly closer to him. “Don’t want to get pulled over for indecent exposure, now, do we?” he whispered throatily, reaching out to cup Castiel's crotch and laughing when the man jumped away, startled, pulling at the wire ring embedded in his still raw back.

 

“Hey, save the flirting,” Sam grumbled, fighting down a pang of jealousy. He knew that his brother was just ensuring that Castiel knew who his masters were, but he still hated having to watch his brother touch their prisoner. Jealousy was mixed with pride, however, and he let the touches and lust filled glances and loud, tortured wails slide.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean scoffed, catching the worn grey sweatpants that Sam threw at his head and slipping them around their captive’s waist. “I’m going to take the chain off and give you a shirt. You be a good boy, and it can stay off until bedtime,” he crooned, sliding a key out of his pocket and removing the fetters from Castiel’s wrists.

 

Sam tapped his foot impatiently as Dean readied Castiel for transport, slipping a leather cuff with a long, seemingly decorative chain hooked to the bottom onto the man’s wrist. “You ready, doctor bondage, or should I give you and your new boyfriend some time to hump like newlyweds?” he demanded, relishing the instant drain of color from Castiel’s face.

 

“Coming, I’m coming!” Dean replied, giving the cuff a warning tap and turning around to pick up his duffel bag. “Jesus, a few extra minutes to secure my toy isn’t going to kill you. I do like having my things stick around, you know? Imagine if you had to leave your laptop.”

 

“My laptop is a lot more important than your slave,” Sam retorted, grinning playfully at his brother to show that he was only teasing. “You driving, or am I?” he asked, punching Dean playfully on the shoulder, allowing his hand to linger on the supple leather of his brother’s worn jacket.

 

“My baby, my ass in the driver’s seat,” Dean said, handing the end of the chain to Sam, who took it carefully, trying to look casual. “You know the drill. You two are boyfriends if anyone asks, and he just so loves the cuff you tie him up with, he wears it in public as a fashion accessory.” Sam grinned, knowing that the words were directed at Castiel rather than him.

 

“Cool. To North Dakota we go!” Sam crowed, jerking the chain as a signal for Castiel to follow them out of the small, run-down motel room.

 

The drive would be long and boring, Sam knew, but he was prepared for that. He had stocked up on books about guns and knives and serial killers, always hoping to glean a few tricks from the texts. He did not fully trust Castiel to feed them good information; at least as important as a kept FBI agent was knowing what tricks had allowed fellow killers to remain at large, and what slip-ups had gotten them caught. He tossed his backpack to the floor of the front seat and pushed Castiel in the back, casually snaking the chain up front so that he could hold the man secure as he read.

 

It was hours before they stopped, pulling into a sleazy motel halfway through South Dakota and checking in under one of Dean’s clean pseudonyms. Sam handed the chain off to Dean as they entered the room, flopping down on the bed with his new anthology of automatic weapons. “Let me know if you’re going to fuck him, so I can put in headphones,” he said, hardly sparing his brother a glance.

 

“Better get those headphones, then,” Dean replied, directing a predatory leer at his captive. “Unless you want to join us, this time?”

 

“Nah, just keep it down. I’m going to do some more reading,” Sam said, fishing his headphones and beat-up old mp3 player out of his backpack’s side pocket.

 

“Always the studious one,” Dean said, shrugging and turning back to Castiel.

 

“And you’re always the horny one,” Sam retorted, popping his earbuds in and turning his music player on shuffle, leaning back to engross himself in the book once again. If the occasional pained cry and flash of smooth skin made it to his range of perception, well, then it was better than paying full attention as the brother he loved dominated another man—a man who was not him.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“Who are you?” the scarred, light haired man asked coldly, pressing a burning brand to his chained victim’s forehead. His young victim screamed, writhing in pain, rattling his chains desperately in a futile attempt to break free of his tormentor.

 

“Adam! I’m Adam Milligan! Please, please stop, please, I don’t even know what you want!” the young man wailed, tears streaming down his wretched, twisted face as he shook, his nude body emaciated and bruised from prolonged torture and neglect. He whimpered, pulling at the chains with chafed, bloody wrists, releasing a cry as his flesh tore further, further than his torturer would have thought possible.

 

“Now, now, you know that’s not going to fly around here,” the torturer breathed, smacking Adam lightly in the side with the still hot brand. “You know exactly why you’re here. You’ve got someone locked up inside you, and I want him out. I want to know how someone as little, as insignificant as you, managed to lock him away and keep him held down while you take control over the body that should be his.”

 

“I don’t know,” Adam sobbed, hanging limply in the harsh, rusted shackles, face red and swollen where it had come in contact with the brand. “I don’t know, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t—oh God please no!” he shrieked as his tormentor picked up a fresh brand and pressed it to his calf, the sizzle of burning flesh filling the dungeon with the charred smell of cooked meat. “You’ve got me wrong, you’re looking for someone else, please, I just want to go home, my mother’s got to be worry—no, please! Stop!”

 

The tormentor shrugged, tossing the brand down. “Okay, sure, I’ll stop. Should I send in Azazel, or Crowley, to finish up with you?”

 

“N-neither,” Adam sobbed, trying to curl around himself as much as his bonds would allow. “Please, please, I’m trying, I’m trying so hard, I just don’t know how to do what you want!”

 

The scarred man smoothed the hair out of Adam’s sweaty, tear-stained face. “There, there, it’s all right,” he crooned soothingly, petting the boy’s head until his sobs had lessened to a stream of silent tears. “Just let go. Just let go and tell Michael that you surrender to him,” he murmured, stroking his face tenderly.

 

The young man sniffled, allowing his head to fall back unsupported. His torturer waited patiently, holding his breath; it had to work this time. It had to, because he could not take another day of waiting, of trying to break this insignificant child and allow his glorious, beautiful brother to shine through, taking charge of the vessel that had so unwittingly captured him. Every day for nearly a year, he had struggled and strived, twisting and needling at and breaking the child with no results, and he was growing desperate.

 

Slowly, the boy raised his head, the tears drying on his face, the brand fading before the scarred man’s eyes. “Brother?” he asked, staring around the room, pulling at the chains with one arm, snapping them effortlessly. “What happened? The last thing I remember I was blessing a child—”

 

“Michael,” the man breathed, striding forward and embracing his brother. “You’re still in there.” He drew back, keeping his hands on Michael’s shoulders. How pitiful, that his brother was stuck in this sad, insignificant form! Still, even in the plain, fragile form of a young human, Michael’s strength and glory shone through. “It was the human child,” the man replied, squeezing his brother’s shoulder. “It’s as if you took him as a vessel, except that he took you, and trapped you inside him.”

 

Michael frowned, drawing back slightly from his brother. “Lucifer—that’s not possible, and we both know it. No human has the power to control an angel, not naturally at least!” He stared, horrified, at his hands, pretty even with their rough, calloused skin and ragged nails, filthy and broken from prolonged torture. “This is not the form I had before,” he said, slowly, looking up, meeting his brother’s eyes, confusion and anger flitting across his face in quick succession. “You’re telling the truth. I was actually forced into a vessel—without _my_ consent.” Michael shook his head, flexing his hand experimentally. “The child could not have been older than three when I came to him,” Michael said, slowly, staring straight into his brother’s eyes, gaze piercing and imperious. “How long was I gone?” he demanded.

 

“Years,” Lucifer said, shaking his head. “Decades, even? I am not on the best of terms with the rest of the family right now—but I heard that you were missing, trapped inside a perfectly pitiful human, and I knew that I had to rescue you.” Lucifer folded his hands in front of his body, looking expectantly at his brother. “Do you see why I took on the burden of wiping out humanity? I know, they’re father’s favorites—but they are so pitiful, so insignificant, and apparently now they have discovered the power to put aside their insignificance just long enough to drag us down with him! They have to be destroyed, before they lock every single one of us in a body like yours!” Lucifer spread his hands wide, hoping, almost praying, that Michael would see his point, would see reason.

 

Michael frowned, examining his body. “I had thought you insane, before,” he said slowly, raising his face to meet his brother’s eyes. “But I believe I can understand where you have been coming from this whole time. If humans have gotten this power—” he broke off, staring steadily at Lucifer. “Father saw this coming when he created humans, didn’t he?” he asked quietly, a calculating expression spreading across his face. “He did not simply want us to love them. If this is what he planned—he made humans to be our prisons, didn’t he?” He paused, and when Lucifer said nothing, he spoke again. “I have no desire to exist imprisoned and comatose in a human body. This was a betrayal on Father’s part.” He nodded, reaching out and taking Lucifer’s icy, scarred hand. “I will join you, brother. For the sake of our race. This—this must be a test, on Father’s part. A contest between human and angel to see who is more worthy of existence, of his love.” Michael squeezed Lucifer’s hand, and released it gently, pulling the limb back to stare at it in disbelief. “I will fight with you, brother. For the sake of the angels. For Father’s love.”

 

Lucifer exhaled, rubbing his hands together, relieved. “Thank you, Michael. Thank you for finally understanding.” He clasped his brother’s shoulder, and smiled. “We are not alone. From angels who have seen reason to humans I have molded to my cause, to demons I have brought under my influence, our numbers are growing. It should only be a few short years before we can strike humanity and burn their race into the ground.”

 

Michael nodded, and embraced his brother. “For the angels, then?” he asked, voice thick with emotion.

 

“For the angels,” Lucifer breathed, smiling as he held his brother. _For the angels. For me. For us. Humanity will burn._

0o0o0o0o0

 

Dean leaned back languidly, his feet propped on the soft body of the morbidly obese corpse beneath him, tilting his head back as he chased the last drops from his coke. “Refill, Cas,” he ordered, handing the drink to the trembling agent, face splattered with blood and tiny pieces of wet skin. He grinned across the mostly constructed McDonalds at Sam, similarly situated, casually sipping from a large plastic cup of tea. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, grinning. Three days from opening, the new franchise’s managers had set up a meeting after the day’s machine installations, a dreadfully unwise move for them. Fast food restaurants under construction were the perfect place for silent knife kills; no customers, few employees, very little chance of anyone calling the police. This one had been perfect; among other things at the meeting, the managers had elected today to test the new soda machine. Dean was never one to pass up a free drink, especially after the taxing work of close-range killing.

 

Castiel came back with his drink, shaking in his oversized trench coat—thrift stores were a godsend, really—trembling so hard that his cuffed wrists clanked together. He proffered the drink, and when Dean took it, sank to his knees, expression set, allowing Dean to use his shoulder as an armrest. Dean smirked, digging his elbow into the agent’s shoulder with perhaps a bit more vigor than necessary, and kicked at the corpse beneath him. He slurped a drag from the soda, tossing his head back with a loud, dramatically contented sigh. “This is it, Sam,” he declared, reaching his arm around Castiel’s shoulders, twisting his wrist to drag his fingers possessively across the man’s jugular. “This is the high life. All play, no work, and free drinks on the house!” He kicked his dead footrest with a good-natured jerk. “Hell, I heard from Ash, even. Did you know his parents were from here? His dad kicked the bucket a few weeks back and the house is empty. Ash’s waiting to sell the house ‘til we leave the state, and we can use it for a couple days at least!”

 

Sam grinned, tossing his knife lightly in the air, catching it with each consecutively higher toss. “Not surprised Ash came through on that,” he said, grinning. “You ask me, Ash probably had a little something to do with dear old daddy’s death. You’ve heard his stories. I think we should count it as a Christmas present,” he suggested, gesturing out the glass panes of the door, where he sparse streetlights illuminated a flurry of snow, “since the weather has decided it’s winter a month early.”

 

“Welcome to the north, I guess,” Dean shrugged, pushing himself out of his chair, careful to not slip on the gory floor. “We probably shouldn’t stay that much longer. Want to go check out this new house?” He seized Castiel by the hair, dragging the unresisting man to his feet. “Get cleaned up, raid the fridge, maybe even celebrate a little bit. The works!”

 

“I’m all for pointless celebrations,” Sam chuckled, rising to his feet, slipping a bit as his foot caught in a disembodied scalp. He knelt, wiping his blade on the body nearest his feet, which served only to smear the blood around the hilt of the knife. “You got directions?”

 

“I snagged a GPS when we hit that electronics store,” Dean said with a grin. “Already got the address programed in. Shouldn’t be more than what, half an hour from here?”

 

Sam nodded, pocketing his bloody knife. “Good. Lead the way, captain directions.”

 

“Ah, fuck off,” Dean replied cheerfully. He seized the chain linking Castiel’s hands together, pulling the agent flush against his body. “Half an hour far enough away, pretty boy?” he asked, stroking the man’s white, exposed neck with a single finger, leaving behind a faint trail of blood.

 

“Considering that the police have no reason to suspect that this was you, and the house you are staying in is empty and owned by the dead man’s son several states away, it should be safe,” Cas replied flatly, looking past Dean and out the window. “This road is empty at this time of night, and if one of you takes a manager’s car and drives it a few miles down the road, it will simply look to any passers-by like the employees leaving their meeting.”

 

“Sam, hotwire one of the cars and follow me,” Dean commanded, heading towards the door. “I’ll stop a few miles out when it’s safe and you can ditch the car. Just wipe down everything you touch. I’ve got some towels and a tarp in the back of the Impala.”

 

The roads were mercifully empty, only a few civilian cars passing by between the scene of the slaughter and an empty back lot. Dean parked and waited for Sam to scrub his DNA from the stolen vehicle, cheerfully regrouping with his brother and turning around to drive to Ash’s father’s empty house. The small, vinyl sided building was covered in dirt and vines, badly in need of cleaning and repair, but the inside was tidy enough, clear of dust and clutter and other obstacles that could potentially reveal that a pair of criminals and their pet hostage had passed a few days there. The Impala fit easily in the ramshackle garage, small and dark enough that the car could not be seen from the outside; it was far enough out of the suburbs that any neighbors would have no reason to see the car pull into the driveway, and then the garage, signaling as it would have to suburban busy-bodies that outsiders had come by to pass the night.

 

“Save water, shower together?” Dean suggested, dragging Cas into the small, neat living room, Sam following close behind him, boots soft on the dingy carpet that had probably once been white.

 

“Works for me,” Sam replied, leaning forward and placing a sloppy kiss on his brother’s lips. “We’re getting downright domestic,” he declared, shaking his head with a grin as he surveyed the painted walls and threadbare furniture. “Worrying about water bills, next thing you know we’ll be paying rent and saving for a mortgage,” he teased, cupping Dean’s blood-streaked cheek with a hand covered in dried fluids.

 

“Awesome,” Dean smiled, jerking Castiel along and leading his brother, searching the few rooms until he found the master bedroom, a tiny bathroom blocked off by a scratched wooden door. He eased the door open and fumbled for a light switch, drawing the shades closed with his free hand and gesturing at Sam to join him. He stripped efficiently, bloody clothes pooling around his ankles as he bent over to free his feet from their scuffed, sturdy boots. Sam followed suit, lightly slapping his backside with his jacket as he pulled it from his body. Dean grinned, turning slightly and mouthing at his brother’s neck, before directing his attention at Castiel, who seemed to be trying to disappear into the corner. “You’re a bit bloody too,” Dean smirked, jerking his slave forward by the collar. He hastily unfastened the man’s fetters, allowing them to fall with a loud clank to the tile floor, and unfastened his trench coat, stripping it away to leave the man naked and exposed.

 

Sam chuckled, starting the water as Dean stripped their prisoner. “Hurry it up, Dean. Shower, then I’ll toss our clothes in the laundry while you figure out dinner.” He shook his head, shaggy locks swinging with the movement. “What did I just say? Domestic. Seriously,” he snickered, stepping into the spray, water droplets glistening on his hard, tanned skin, rivulets of red streaming down his body as matted blood reluctantly gave up its grip on his body and hair.

 

 Dean shoved Castiel forward, directing the man to climb over the bathtub ledge, before he joined the two, pressing up close against his brother’s body. “God, tonight was good,” he half moaned, reaching past Sam to seize a bottle of shampoo, squeezing one of his brother’s buttocks before standing straight again. He smirked as Sam’s lower body tensed, his penis slowly hardening with interest, and Dean squeezed some shampoo into his palm, reaching up to massage his brother’s scalp. Sam took the hint and dropped to his knees, head bowed in a submissive position that did not match the twinkle in his eyes as Dean carefully kneaded his scalp, working dried blood and bits of organs out of his hair, allowing them to swirl down the drain.

 

Sam’s hair clean, Dean squeezed a little more shampoo onto his hand and passed the bottle to his brother, presenting his own bloody scalp as he turned to face Castiel, who was, as usual, squeezed as far back into the corner as he could manage without falling on the slick floor. “Get over here,” Dean ordered, pulling Cas onto his knees, roughly scrubbing blood and tissue from the man’s dark hair as Sam tenderly cleaned his own head. Dean used the suds from the shampoo to scrub blood and flesh from Castiel’s body as Sam’s arms wrapped around his chest, clearing away dried fluids from his skin with a small, heavily used bar of soap. Dean tilted his head up and kissed his brother, tongue swirling around Sam’s mouth as Sam cleaned him, gently pulling the soap out of his brother’s hands and twisting around to groom him in turn.

 

The water ran clear after only a few minutes, but Dean had plans with Castiel for the night, and he did not intend to leave Sam out entirely. “Tonight was so good,” he whispered, positioning himself against Sam’s back, wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist and slicking his hand up with soap, trailing his hand down to palm his brother’s crotch. “You did good, little brother. Didn’t fuck up once, even when switching cars.”

 

Sam moaned, thrusting forward into Dean’s touch, reaching his hands behind his back, searching for Dean. Dean drew back, catching his brother’s hand and twisting it gently behind his back, pulling the man’s other arm into the same position and drawing Sam close, effectively pinning him in his grip. “Now, now, don’t forget who’s in charge,” Dean whispered huskily, hand snaking back down to grip Sam’s arousal. He ran his thumb over the head of Sam’s erect penis, eliciting a wanton moan from the other man. “Calm, now,” he murmured, rhythmically stroking his finger through forming beads of precum, standing on his toes to kiss the side of Sam’s neck. It was rare, that either of them showed affection in their sexual encounters; tonight, however, had been a true treat, a special occasion where they had pulled off a gratifying and successful hit, and had been able to go back to a secure, private place without worries of being caught. It was special, and it seemed only right to Dean that he reward his brother for handling himself so well. “You did so good,” he crooned, rocking his hips against the backs of Sam’s thighs, curling his palm around Sam’s shaft to stroke in time with his own movements. Sam pushed back, his pinned arms pressing sharply into Dean’s chest as he ground against his stomach and the upper part of Dean’s crotch. Dean’s lips twitched in a feral grin; he lightly closed his teeth on Sam’s neck and swirled his hips, gently stroking and pumping Sam’s arousal until his brother was flushed, the now cool water mingling with sweat as he struggled to thrust into Dean’s hand.

 

Sam came loudly, crying out as his orgasm splattered against the bathtub walls. He slumped back against Dean, who staggered, stepping backwards into Castiel, leaning against the prisoner as he supported his brother. “That was nice,” Sam slurred, leaning against Dean’s chest for support, slowly pulling his newly freed arms away. “What brought that on?”

 

“Special occasion,” Dean replied with a grin. “Didn’t I tell you we were going to celebrate tonight? Besides, we both did really well. It only seemed right to reward you.”

 

Sam nodded, struggling to stand and support himself fully. “What about you?” he asked, his expression of acceptance reassuring Dean that he would not try to touch him, try to take back control tonight.”

 

“Don’t worry about me,” Dean murmured, leaning forward to kiss his brother’s collarbone. “I’m planning on giving myself a little treat after dinner. Why don’t you go see about that laundry, I’ll find some food, and I’ll get my reward later tonight.” He kissed his brother, his eyes flicking back to Castiel, pale and terrified, even as Dean slid his tongue through his brother’s mouth and bit down firmly on his lips.

 

A successful hit did call for some celebration, Dean thought, toweling himself off and passing the cloth off to Sam, walking nude out of the bathroom to go through the dead man’s cabinets. Sam had been taken care of, and as soon as they were done with their celebratory dinner, he planned to give himself a gift to be remembered, as proper payment for his success that night.

 

 


	12. Pleasure and Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has his way with Castiel; Lucifer wrings some much-needed information from his captive prophet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless, gratuitous smut awaits the reader. Rejoice, I suppose?  
> I also need to make a note because it bothers me. Kevin would, in keeping with the canon ages, be about 9 or 10 at this point. I'm really not comfortable inserting someone so young into the twisted cluster-fuck that is this world, so I went ahead and bumped him up in age so that he's sixteen, like he is when introduced in the show. It bothers me some, but it was a choice between that and inflict torture on a little kid, so I went with the lesser of two evils. Hopefully no one but me takes issue with this.

Not a single night had gone by when the Winchesters had not beaten him. It was usually Dean who administered the beatings, for which Jimmy—no, _Castiel_ , he reminded himself—was originally grateful; Dean may have been a cruel son-of-a-bitch, but he seemed to lack the innate sadism that Sam always exhibited. It had not taken long, however, for Castiel to prefer Sam, even long for the man to be his keeper and punisher. Dean had always looked at him strangely, with a gaze that made him uncomfortable, though in his innocence, at first, he had not been sure why.

 

The first time Castiel had tried to escape had apparently been a cue to Dean that it was time to take more drastic measures than chains and beatings. In his sexual naivety, Castiel had not realized Dean’s intentions until it was too late to stop the act, or even beg for mercy. His nakedness, he had assumed, was a simple humiliation technique; by that point, being chained to furniture was simply routine. Not until Dean himself had stripped had Castiel thought that he might be about to endure any more than an ordinary beating; even then, it was not until Dean had shoved dry fingers into him, tearing skin and bruising muscle, that he had fully accepted what was going to happen.

 

He knew, from observing the brothers, that they viewed sex as a show of dominance, rather than an act of intimacy and trust. Their incestuous relations, they had not attempted to keep private, especially when they had taken to violent sex, even rape, to punish each other for transgressions. At first, Dean had treated sexual encounters with Castiel the same way; the assaults were designed to hurt, to punish, to shatter him in a way that physical beatings never had. Castiel’s FBI training had taught him to endure blows and wounds, sleep deprivation and death threats; not once, however, had he been told that a captor might violate his bodily integrity in this sort of way. Somehow, even without his memories intact, Castiel was certain that he had been a virgin before his capture; now, however, he could no longer lay claim to that title, and the mere idea of sex was repellant, associated as it was with pain and torture and the crushing helplessness that accompanied it.

 

When Dean proclaimed that they would celebrate tonight, Castiel’s heart had felt trapped between the desire to stop and a harsh rhythym that seemed to suggest that it was trying to burst through his chest. Now, as he sat naked at the table, a chain clipped to the hated ring of wire threaded through his back, he was hard pressed to eat the beans and sandwich that Dean had provided as dinner. The incestuous act he had witnessed between Sam and Dean—not the first of its sort by far—had doubtless stirred Dean’s libido, which could only mean pain for Castiel tonight. He schooled his face into impassivity, forcing himself to eat and drinking glass after glass of water, struggling to calm his nerves. He might have to submit to Dean—he might even give in to fear around the man, especially after witnessing such a depraved slaughter and terrifying preview of the night ahead—but he would not let the fear consume him. Outwardly, he would be as meek, submissive, and frightened as could be, but so long as he kept some resolve hidden away for himself, the Winchesters could not break him. If nothing else, they could not break him beyond repair.

 

“I’m going to turn in,” Sam declared, pushing back his seat and rising, ruffling Dean’s hair and leaving his dishes on the table. “You can take the master bedroom,” he added, raising a knowing eyebrow at Dean, who laughed in reply. Castiel felt sick, watching the two. No brothers should act in such depraved ways towards each other—it was unnatural, a violation of all that was holy and ordered by God. Briefly, Castiel wondered when he had started to put so much stock in faith and religion, but he guessed that it made sense; trapped as he was with a pair of psychopaths, a belief in a higher power was a lifeline, a tether to sanity, to the idea that even this terrible situation had a purpose, somehow, in a higher plan. He guessed he had always believed, but he must have been incredibly religious at some point in his life, for it to offer him such comfort now.

 

Automatically, when the chain was unhooked, Castiel rose and began clearing away dishes, desperate to put off the inevitable. His muscular legs shook slightly with dread and anticipation as he felt Dean’s gaze on his back, but at least while standing at the sink, he could not see the lust and cruel delight in the other man’s eyes.

 

No sooner had Castiel dried and replaced the final dish than he felt warm breath on the back of his neck. “Alone at last,” Dean murmured, running a possessive hand down the side of Castiel’s neck. Reflexively, Castiel shrank against the counter, his hands clutching at granite as though it was his only lifeline. “Aw, don’t be like that, Cas,” the man crooned, gently wrapping a large palm around Castiel’s pale, exposed neck. “I’m in a generous mood tonight. If you’re nice, I’ll make it good for you,” he whispered, gently tonguing the lobe of Castiel’s right ear, his mouth warm, slick, and every bit as possessive as his hands. Almost gently, Dean ran a finger down Castiel’s back and hooked it through the wire ring, pulling at still sensitive, healing flesh. Castiel hissed, prompting a snicker from Dean. “Don’t like this?” the man asked, pulling at it again before placing his hands on Castiel’s shoulders and roughly manhandling him around, scraping Castiel's hips against scuffed granite as he pulled Castiel’s chest against his own. “Should I have you on your back, so that I can’t touch it?” he whispered, catching the smaller man’s lip softly between his teeth.

 

Castiel glared, heart hammering against his ribcage. Dean smirked, releasing his lip and ducking his head to gnaw lightly at the man’s collarbone. “Don’t be such a kill-joy,” he whispered, placing a hand on the back of Castiel’s neck and walking away, guiding him towards the master bedroom. “We’re going to have fun tonight. We can make it last for hours, and I meant it when I said I’ll make it good for you if you behave.” He shut the door with a click and shoved Castiel towards the bed, nodding expectantly at him. “On your back,” he ordered, bare feet padding lightly across the stained carpet as he closed in on the man.

 

Swallowing hard, every instinct screaming at him to fight, to punch, kick, run, Castiel lowered himself onto the too-soft queen bed, the old wooden frame groaning slightly as he rested his weight on it. He positioned himself flat on his back, hands fisting in the vaguely floral inspired green comforter, wary eyes tracking Dean’s every movement. Dean chuckled, crawling up on the bed and trapping Castiel’s legs between his knees, eyes blown with lust as he surveyed the obedient, unwilling man beneath him. “Beg for me,” Dean whispered, gradually straightening his knees and grinding his crotch against Castiel’s limp cock. “Beg me to fuck you every way I can imagine. Beg to suck me off. Come on, Cas, don’t tell me you don’t want this,” he teased, rolling his hips, digging painfully into Castiel’s lower body. Castiel could swear that his legs were going numb, losing feeling already from the vice-like grip of Dean’s thighs, and the unrelenting pressure of the man's dripping cock against Castiel’s crotch.

 

He didn’t want this, but Castiel knew that Dean did not require his desire so much as his submission. “Take me, Dean,” he whispered, tensing with dread as his assailant’s arousal twitched with approval. “You can have me however you want. Do anything you want to me—I want to please you. I’m yours.” Bile rose in his throat with the lie; he swallowed hard, willing his stomach to keep hold of its contents. Perhaps he should not have eaten dinner with the brothers after all.

 

Dean groaned in approval, leaning down and closing his teeth around Castiel’s Adam’s apple. Castiel whined, clenching his fists tighter in the bedspread, his neck tensing at the sudden, unwelcome pain. Dean pulled away, licking a slow, possessive stripe down the side of Castiel’s neck, trailing his tongue over Castiel’s shoulder and collarbone. “I can do anything I want to you,” he whispered, nipping at the base of Castiel’s neck, “and you’ll love it, won’t you, you little slut?”

 

“Yes,” Castiel lied, closing his eyes and hoping, praying, that this would be over quickly.

 

Dean moaned, seizing Castiel’s biceps in a crushing grip. “Then why aren’t you hard?” he asked menacingly. Castiel gulped; Dean had never expected him to enjoy these assaults. Indeed, he had always seemed to take pleasure in Castiel’s pain and reluctance, spitefully fucking him and molesting him until the pain and discomfort had overloaded Castiel’s senses, making even the idea of any sort of pleasure, sexual or otherwise, a foreign concept. “Come on, you little whore. Show me how much you like what I do to you,” the man growled, grinding painfully against Castiel. He squeezed his arms again and sat back on his heels, reaching down with a forceful hand and kneading Castiel’s balls almost painfully. “Help me out here, Cas,” he ordered, taking Castiel’s hand and stroking it against the man’s cock. “You’re gonna have to show me how much you want me for me to believe you, and you don’t want to know what I’ll do if I find out you lied to me.”

 

Castiel swallowed hard, the threat putting his situation in perspective. He should have known that eventually, Dean would decide to assert his dominance in more creative ways than simply torturing him unconscious. Tentatively, he trailed his fingers across his crotch, stroking himself desperately, trying to detach himself from the situation enough to get hard. Dean continued to knead his balls as Castiel wrapped his fingers around his cock, which slowly began to harden, weakly twitching as he cast his mind about, struggling to find an arousing thought to cling to. Castiel had never had a high sex drive; he could likely count the number of times he had masturbated in the past five years, but this was not about sex, or even pleasure. This was pure self-preservation, and the need to protect himself trailed about the flashes of attractive men and women, the brief suggestions of arousing situations, that he could dredge up in his mind, until finally his body began to cooperate, blood flowing to his lower body, his cock rising and hardening until he had achieved what he hoped was a suitable erection.

 

Dean leered down at his crotch, drinking in the sight. Castiel continued the motions of his fingers, terrified that if he stopped for even an instant he would go soft again, inciting Dean’s wrath. “Larger than I would have expected,” the man crooned, sliding back on the bed and placing his lips to the Castiel’s erection. Castiel jolted, startled at the unfamiliar sensation, his arousal twitching with interest that did not match Castiel’s own feelings about the situation. “You love this, don’t you?” Dean whispered, his words vibrating around the tip of Castiel’s penis, sending a shudder of pleasure through the man’s body. “You little slut. I’ll bet you’re insatiable once you get going, aren’t you?”

 

Castiel moaned in response, reaching up unthinkingly to grip Dean’s shoulder. His assailant drew back, knocking his hand back to the bed. “I never said you could touch me,” he growled, shimmying up the bed and backhanding Castiel sharply across the face. Castiel yelped, his erection subsiding substantially with the sting. Dean glanced down at his crotch and shook his head, letting out a sigh. “Just when I thought we were getting somewhere,” he complained, ducking his head and closing his lips around the tip of Castiel’s softening penis.

 

The sensation was strange, and Castiel whined as sparks of pleasure shot through the organ, sending blood rushing from his head into his crotch. He felt dizzy, consumed by even this slight action, and reached up to clasp the headboard with trembling hands, struggling to keep his hips still as Dean sucked and teased, licking lightly at his swollen head until Castiel thought he would burst from pleasure. He whined as Dean drew away, legs shaking from the strain of staying still. Dean responded with a smirk, stroking Castiel from his throat down to the base of his crotch, deliberately avoiding his erection.

 

“You’ve been good so far, but I’m not finished with you,” he whispered, rising from the bed and leaving Castiel, returning from the bathroom with Castiel’s discarded fetters and his own discarded belt. “Hands,” he ordered, clasping Castiel’s wrists together and looping the belt around them, pulling Cas up to a sitting position and securing the belt to the headboard. “Don’t even think about trying to unfasten that,” he murmured, climbing back onto the bed and ghosting his hand across Castiel’s swollen erection.

 

Castiel whined, bucking up unconsciously into Dean’s touch. He hated the man; he hated that it wasn’t enough to beat him and torture him and hammer away at his spirit. He gritted his teeth, reminding himself that he was a man, not simply a sack of meat and flesh and nerves. His body might enjoy this, but he would not. He would make it through tonight with his mind intact, and carry his survival as a badge of honor.

 

Dean straddled Castiel, grinding his hips, rubbing their erections together. “I knew you’d enjoy this, you little slut,” he murmured, trailing light kisses down Castiel’s jaw. “You’re going to take everything I give you and like it, aren’t you?” He shoved Castiel’s shoulders back against the headboard, pressing against the man and burying his face in the crook of Castiel’s neck, mouthing at soft skin, covered in a light sheen of sweat. “Maybe next time I take you along on a job, I’ll have you right there with the bodies. I’ll bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Fucking you face first into the blood—God, that would be hot.” He clamped his teeth around Castiel’s neck, clenching down until Castiel thought that his skin would break under the pressure. He groaned, twisting as much as he could to lessen the pain, and Dean seemed to take the noise as a sign of pleasure. “Like this, whore?” he asked, grazing his teeth across the sensitive skin where Castiel’s jaw met his neck. Dean smirked as Castiel shook his head; Castiel screwed his eyes shut, waiting for Dean to ravage his neck again.

 

The bite never came. “Then you can have a break,” Dean whispered, shifting his legs so that Castiel was spread, straddled over his lap. Dean reached out reflexively towards the bedside table, and then blinked, slapping his head in remembrance. “We don’t have lube here,” he groaned, shaking his head regretfully. “Guess we’ll have to work around that.” He brushed his fingers against Castiel’s lips. “Open,” he ordered, greedy hands demanding entrance to his prisoner’s mouth.

 

Reluctantly, Castiel sucked Dean’s fingers into his mouth, tongue swirling around them until they were slick, as wet as he could make them. Still, when Dean moved his sopping hand down to Castiel’s entrance and brutally shoved a finger in, he may as well have taken him dry. Castiel inhaled sharply as Dean’s finger burned, joined far too soon by a second finger. “Not ready,” he gasped, begging, fighting his natural instincts to tense up around the intrusion. “Please, please let me adjust!”

 

Dean smiled, leaning forward and pecking Castiel on the forehead. “Aw, but baby, I just can’t wait much longer,” he crooned, sucking on the index finger of his free hand, then sliding it to join the other two. Castiel howled as Dean’s nails scratched his insides, seizing the belt with desperate hands and struggling to pull himself up, off those terrible, probing fingers. Dean pulled one hand out and gripped Castiel’s shoulder, holding the man onto his remaining two fingers as he worked a long-dried third finger in to join them, taking the place of the hand he had withdrawn, and no less painfully, the part of Castiel that could still think noticed.

 

Dean’s breath was hot, ragged on Castiel’s neck. The assailant removed his hand from Castiel’s shoulder, spitting into his palm and rubbing it across his erection as a pitiful substitute for lube. “Ready Cas?” he panted, withdrawing his fingers and lining himself up with Castiel’s entrance.

 

Castiel screamed as Dean forced his way slowly, steadily into his body. Three fingers and some spit was not enough, he thought hazily, as the too dry skin of Dean’s erection scraped and pulled against his insides and from the contorted grimace on Dean’s face, the other man knew it too. “Gonna give me a friction burn, Cas,” he panted, dropping his hand to play with Castiel’s steadily softening penis, carefully teasing it back to full arousal. “All because you’re such a tempting slut, I didn’t even have time to get lube.”

 

Castiel slumped forward, shaking, as Dean rested for a moment, allowing Castiel to get used to his girth—most likely because he didn’t want a friction burn, and not out of any concern for Castiel’s comfort, the man thought bitterly. Too soon, Dean drew back slightly and rocked forward, the tiny shift enough to send streaks of pain through Castiel’s body. He wanted to beg, to plead Dean to let him do something, anything else—but that was probably exactly what Dean wanted, and he would not be so weak. Castiel gritted his teeth as Dean shifted underneath him, a hand going to Castiel’s hip to encourage him to rise when Dean sank down, and lower his body when Dean thrust up.

 

Castiel whined as Dean’s free hand swept across the head of his cock, trapped between their stomachs, smearing drops of pre-cum across his fingertips and over Castiel’s shaft. Reflexively, he bucked his hips, sending a ripple of pain through his sore, abused backside. Dean growled his approval, snapping his own hips up hard, slamming into Castiel with bruising force. Castiel gasped, struggling to hold back a cry as he slumped forward against his bonds. There was no point in fighting; perhaps it would be less painful to simply let Dean rut into him, rather than trying to pull away or minimize the damage.

 

He lost track of time as he laid there limply, head resting on his assailant’s shoulder as Dean increased his pace, pounding into his abused ass with an intensity that Castiel had never experienced before—perhaps it just seemed that way because Dean had never tried to take him dry before. He wondered how much of Dean’s increased ability to move was from time and stretching, and how much of it was from blood. Castiel tried to drift away, to detach himself from the situation; Dean shoved his head away, and Castiel panicked, terrified that he would be punished for resigning himself to use as a limp glory hole. “Can’t have that, now, Cas,” Dean whispered, dragging Castiel’s head back with a fist in his short, dark hair. Dean licked a strip up Castiel’s neck, slowing his pace to a gentle rock, reaching down for Castiel’s erection. Cas had nearly forgotten about it, with the overwhelming pain in his backside, but he had not yet gone fully flaccid. “It’s okay man. Some guys have trouble keeping it up,” Dean said mockingly, tracing the head of Castiel’s penis with a now familiar finger.

 

Castiel prepared for pain as Dean shifted his hips and arched up into him; he groaned as the ripping sensation intensified. Dean frowned and shifted his hips again, his penis shifting slightly at the change in angle. Castiel trembled with dread as Dean thrust into him, and was unprepared for the sudden burst of pleasure that rushed through his veins and directly to his cock, as Dean hit a sweet spot that he had not even known he had. Castiel cried out, cheeks flushing with humiliation as Dean thrust up again, wringing another moan from his mouth. He had not realized that this degrading act could be pleasurable without outside stimulation; somehow, it made the situation so much more humiliating in his mind.

 

With a satisfied growl, Dean thrust up hard, resuming his fast pace as he slammed into that delicious sweet spot over and over again. He drew his hand away from Castiel’s erection and gripped both of his hips, pulling the man down onto him and shoving him away in time with his thrusts. Castiel moaned wantonly, his erection throbbing as pressure built up inside of him. He tensed around Dean, legs shaking, and let out a cry of protest as the man beneath him stilled. “Please,” he whimpered, eyes screwed shut—whether it was from pleasure or the desire to hold back tears, he was no longer certain. He thought it might be both. “Please, please don’t stop, I’m begging you!”

 

Dean pulled a hand away from Castiel’s hip, gently stroking his face. “You’re getting too close to finishing,” he murmured, trailing his finger from Castiel’s cheek down his neck, across his stomach, before pulling his touch away and wrapping his hand around the base of Castiel’s cock and balls, squeezing tightly. Castiel whimpered as his penis throbbed in protest, pressure building to the point where it was almost painful. “Not until I say you can,” he whispered, gripping Castiel’s cock warningly as he snapped his hips upwards again, slamming into Castiel, dragging his erection teasingly across the man’s prostate until Castiel was screaming, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he fought to keep his mind from shattering at the intense mix of pleasure and pain.

 

Dean groaned as he came, pounding through his orgasm into Castiel’s body, until finally, spent, he leaned forward, pinning Castiel’s back against the headboard. “Okay, off,” he muttered, holding the man steady as he pulled out from under him, cum drizzling onto the bed as he dragged his limp penis out of Castiel.

 

Cas stared at Dean, who lay on the bed, a hand still wrapped around his erection, holding down his orgasm. His red, swollen cock twitched in desperation and pain from prolonged arousal and stimulation. “Please,” he whispered, hating himself for begging, “please remove your hand. I tried, I swear I tried—” how pathetic, a trained FBI agent, reduced to begging like a drugged whore at the hands of his rapist.

 

Dean chuckled, snuggling with his head in Castiel’s lap in a way that would have been comforting had he been someone, anyone else. Without removing his hand, Dean licked a slow, tantalizing stripe across the head of Castiel’s swollen erection, eliciting a whine of pain from the bound man. “But Cas,” he said, mockingly, “I never said I was done with you, did I?”

 

Cas whimpered, shaking his head frantically. “Dean, I can’t—”

 

 “Of course you can,” Dean purred, licking Castiel’s erection and humming softly against the sensitive skin. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you through it. Nice and obedient or not, you’re my slave, Castiel,” he murmured, and Castiel hated that the vibration of his lips sent sparks of pleasure shooting through his body, even as his stomach dropped at the hated words. “So you finish when I say you can, and you learn to hold off until then. Think of this as another learning experience,” he whispered, swirling his tongue around Castiel’s penis, dredging a long, keening cry from the man as he bucked desperately, unable to break Dean’s grip, release dangling just beyond his grasp.

 

The last time Dean had imposed a “learning experience” upon Castiel, three police officers had died and Castiel had ended up flat on his stomach, unable to walk with a badly bruised tailbone for almost a week. It seemed that this learning experience was going to be less physically damaging than the last one, but as Dean’s tongue drove him close and closer to the forbidden edge, the last part of Castiel that had any rational awareness thought that it might be the psychological deal-breaker he had fought so hard to avoid.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Lucifer gazed impassively at the prophet before him, his jaundiced, skeletal limbs shaking with tension as he stared off into space. “Prophecy isn’t fortune telling,” the boy said finally, daring to toss Lucifer a glance. “I can’t exactly call up the big man and ask him questions. I only know what he lets me know, and that’s not always very much.”

 

“But you know this, Kevin,” Lucifer replied silkily, jamming his hands into his pockets and walking, carefully circling the boy, who gripped the arms of his chair with white knuckles. “I know that he told you. Wouldn’t it be a shame for your mother to die, just because you felt like keeping secrets?”

 

Kevin’s sun-deprived face went even paler than it already was, which Lucifer was surprised to realize was possible. Years in a dungeon did not do much for one’s complexion, after all. “Don’t hurt her,” he hissed, pushing himself out of the chair with frail, malnourished limbs. As weak and sickly as Lucifer kept him, with daily, non-lethal doses of arsenic in his food—assuming he was fed, that day—neither Lucifer nor any of his guards had ever seen a need to restrain the prophet. His physical weakness worked as well as ropes, and that heart full of love for his mother was more powerful than any chain. “You can’t. You won’t have anything over me then.”

 

“Well, I can hardly go around making false threats,” Lucifer replied, shrugging his arms a what-can-you-do expression crossing his face. “So it’s answer me, or I kill her.”

 

Kevin growled, and Lucifer had to admit, he was impressed. Three years in his dungeons, and at sixteen, Kevin still had fight left in him. “Fine,” he said, glaring spitefully at the angel, “but I want to get a visit with her too.”

 

“I suppose it’s been a few months, hasn’t it?” Lucifer replied, lazily inspecting a fingernail. “Permission granted. I will have her brought to you. Now, give me a name.”

 

Kevin closed his eyes, and Lucifer grinned in triumph. He had won. He knew that the boy had been keeping back information from the day he had been chosen, and Lucifer’s people had taken him. It was frustrating, to be sure, but Kevin always cracked when Lucifer really needed him to. “Samuel Winchester,” the boy said, dropping his head in defeat. “Your true vessel is a man called Samuel Winchester.”

 

 


	13. To Court My Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam receives a disturbing message from the mysterious supremacist group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freaking finally, the main part of the series starts. I can't believe it takes almost the entire first fic to get here.
> 
> Don't send threatening or creepy letters from your supremacist group to national news channels. It's tasteless and uncouth. Actually, just don't form or join supremacist groups. If you are a member of a supremacist group, you are an asshole and I don't want you reading my story.
> 
> Killing people is not appropriate stress relief. Neither is beating, maiming, or torturing people. Please keep that in mind and don't get any twisted ideas, yes?

“We should probably move on,” Sam suggested across the table, raising an eyebrow as Dean shoveled homemade bacon into his mouth, grease dripping messily down his chin onto a chipped Lucite plate. “We’ve been here what, three days?” As pleasant as it was to have a steady location, they could not stay in Ash’s house forever. Too long, and they ran the risk of someone realizing the house was occupied, especially with Dean’s new habit of—whatever it was that he was doing, that made Castiel scream and moan so loudly that a shut door and earphones did not drown out the noise. Sam hated that it seemed to have become a habit; with their little experiment in domestic bliss, he almost felt like he was losing his brother to the broken little fuck toy who knelt at his feet. The road as the only solution Sam could think of to remind his brother of his rightful place at Sam’s side, killing with abandon and fucking only when necessary. A good spree would set things right.

 

Dean grunted, swallowing his mouthful and reaching with a greasy hand for a mug of re-heated coffee. “Fine by me,” he said, taking a swig and grimacing as the drink went down. “We need to make a fresh pot,” his brother commented, making a face at the mug and taking another, smaller sip. “Got anywhere in particular you want to hit?”

 

“Not really,” Sam replied, shrugging. “Newspaper hasn’t linked that McDonald’s to us, though, so getting out of here shouldn’t be too hard. We can probably go anywhere. Might not even have to leave the state, at this rate.” He shot a spiteful look at the FBI agent huddled under the table, raw knees drawn up to his bare chest. “What say you, Fed?” he asked mockingly, kicking lightly at the man.

 

Castiel drew even further in on himself, dull blue eyes fixed on the tile floor, grimy after three days of boots and socked feet without a proper cleaning. “It is unlikely that anyone will look for you here,” he said slowly, clenching his hands around his calves and staring at the ground. “You will probably be safe.”

 

Sam grinned, waggling his eyebrows at Dean. “Check the news for confirmation, and head out?” he asked, cocking his head cheerfully.

 

“Is there even an 11 am newscast?” Dean asked, downing the rest of his coffee with a grimace. “Cas, make a new pot. Get any grounds in it and I’ll beat you so hard you won’t be able to sit for a month,” he ordered, turning his attention back to his brother. “Eh, turn the TV on until we get a news channel. I’ll start packing.”

 

Sam grinned and rose, leaving the dishes for Castiel, who, loathsome though his presence was when it came to his effect on Dean, certainly did have his uses. Sam swaggered over to the old television, turning it on and flopping down on the couch with a contented sigh. It would not take Dean long to pack the few belongings they had brought in, and he looked forward to his brother joining him on the couch.

 

An hour of inane, simplistic programming passed, and Sam was glad for the distraction when Dean joined him halfway through. He pulled his brother’s head onto his lap, stroking his hair possessively, though he would have never admitted that he intended, at least a bit, to make a point to both Dean and Castiel that the older Winchester was his, his brother and his property, at least as much as Sam was Dean’s, if not more. The weight of Dean’s head, and the comfort of his breath, made the banal program easier to bear, and Sam sank back contentedly into the couch cushions.

 

The program finally ended, much to Sam's relief, and the twelve-o-clock news opened with a supposedly sophisticated jingle, weather reports and sports scores taking up the majority of the broadcast. Sam stroked Dean’s hair, relaxing at the content. They were safe; there was no mention of their most recent massacre, or of any of their crimes, unless it was to come later.

 

“We regret to inform you that MSNBC has been the recipient of another message from the man calling himself the One Who Brings Light. Here’s Melinda with commentary on this most recent letter,” the portly man on screen said, flashing the camera a cheesy smile. From Sam’s lap, Dean groaned, shaking his head with the same annoyance that Sam felt. Neither of the brothers understood why the stations took this group so seriously; why waste time on an organization that had shown no intention of making good on their threats, when there were so many more interesting things that could be reported?

 

The camera cut to a slightly overweight, but nevertheless pretty woman, red painted fingernails tapping a sheet of paper taped to her desk. “Jerry, the reports are in, and it seems like this group is actually getting serious! For the first time, they have sent us a letter directed at an individual, and with theories circling about this organization’s status as a terrorist cell or supremacist group, I don’t think anyone will be surprised by the infamous name that comes up!” She smiled, bright white teeth flashing obnoxiously, and began to recite the letter, a picture of which popped up in blurry quality as a side screen.

 

“I know you will see this, Samuel,” she said, and Sam blinked, before shrugging it off—Samuel was not an uncommon name, after all. “One way or another, eventually you will tune in, hear my overtures. I have glad tidings for you; you will be spared in the coming purge.” The woman shook her head with phony disbelief. “You are one of the chosen. You are my chosen partner, ordained by fate to work with me, and live by my side as I bring about a new reign upon this world. You have the wit of a thousand men, and the strength of one hundred. Perhaps you have taken note of your abilities; have you not, you will once I bring you to me.” The newscaster smiled, glancing down at the notes before continuing.

 

“Take heed, Samuel; I will always find you. You can run, and you can hide, but eventually, you will join me. I am patient, and I know how to take what is mine. Make no mistake—your days of running and hiding will soon cease, and I will take you and mold you into the perfect weapon, a true vessel to bring about a new world.” The newscaster licked her lips, bright red lipstick smearing slightly with the action. “You have shown a lack of restraint, of sharpness, in your exterminations thus far. I will direct you, shape you, make you perfect.” Sam tensed—no, it was a coincidence. Plenty of killers named Samuel out there; it as borderline arrogant to assume that this group was courting him. “You will come to me willingly, or I will find you. Make no mistake; you have been chosen by a higher power to work with me, and for once, I will accept the orders of this power.

 

“I look forward to making your acquaintance one way or another, Samuel Winchester, murderer of one thousand men.”

 

Sam sucked in breath sharply, suddenly light-headed. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he whispered, as the newscaster prattled on about some inane commentary, doubtless linking his violence to the potential violence of the group. “Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” he roared, leaping to his feet, Dean’s head thunking against the couch. “How in the hell—what the fuck makes this two-bit low-life—” He inhaled, breathing in and out deeply, trying to calm himself. “What the fuck. Dean, did we miss something about this group?”

 

Dean sat up, suddenly alert, staring at the newscaster with wide eyes. “Holy shit man,” he breathed, blinking a few times in disbelief. “This little posse wants you?” He grinned, but the expression was weak, forced. “Well, I guess they’re not going for supreme based on looks, or they’d be trying to get me on their side,” he joked feebly, staring at the screen, deliberately avoiding Sam’s face.

 

“Do you think this is a joke?” Sam growled, glaring furiously at his brother. “Some cheap little terrorist group thinks that, that I’m willing to be their butt buddy? And they put it on the fucking news?” Sam cursed—so much for being able to let loose and relax a little. “Wonderful! Now we’ve catapulted ourselves back to the front of the FBI’s radar, the police’s radar—the whole country’s taking this group as some giant threat, and now somehow I’m supposed to be associated with it?” The wall was too far; enraged, Sam turned around and slammed his fist into Dean’s jaw, cursing as his knuckles bruised on unyielding bone. “And you have the audacity to joke about it?” he screamed, ducking through Dean’s defenses and landing a solid blow to his chest, knocking him back into the couch.

 

“If I may?” Castiel’s voice was soft and hesitant; Sam rounded on him with a growl, enraged when the agent did not shrink away from the attention. “Screaming and violence will only draw attention to this house. If you are worried that the police will come after you, you should—”

 

Sam strode the short distance from the living room to the open kitchen, seizing Castiel and picking him up by the throat. The man choked, hands rising automatically to slide under Sam’s grip, opening up his airways without trying to dislodge his captor. “Do you think I don’t know that, you little shit?” he hissed, panting, landing a blow to Castiel’s stomach as he dragged him to the tops of his toes. He felt no satisfaction as the man gasped and twitched, struggling to breathe; he was focused solely the insistent pounding of consuming rage in his head. “Dean, pack the car,” he ordered, eyes not leaving the twisted face of the man he was strangling.

 

He could feel, if not see, Dean hesitate behind him, before the pad of footsteps informed him that Dean was off to grab their bags. Sam dropped Castiel, who landed in a heap on the floor, and stormed into the spare bedroom where he had spent the past several nights, digging around until he found a sleeping bag and some old clothes. He grabbed the sleeping bag, a shirt, and a tie, and stalked out to the kitchen, stuffing the shirt into Castiel’s mouth without preamble and pointing to the sleeping bag. Castiel hesitated for only a moment before crawling into the soft folds. Sam made a mental note to return the bag and clothing to Ash at his first opportunity. He unhooked Castiel’s chain from the table leg, coiling it into the sleeping bag, and then bunched the top shut, securing it with the tie and effectively trapping the captive in a cloth prison.

 

Sam hefted Castiel over his shoulder, grunting slightly, and headed out to meet Dean at the car. He tossed the sleeping bag onto the floor of the backseat, where it landed with a solid thunk; Castiel let out a muffled groan upon impact. Sam slammed the door and climbed into the passenger’s seat, leaning back, alert, as Dean started the car and drove out, leaving the garage door open behind them.

 

Staying in the state was no longer an option. Dean sped towards the highway, merging swiftly at the first opportunity, eyes fixed on the road. “Gonna lay low at Bobby’s for a bit,” he said, without looking at Sam. “Just for a few days, let this broadcast blow over. We can try hitting the road again in a week or so, if it seems safe.”

 

Sam did not respond. Dean meant well, he knew, but he was twitchy, itching with rage and frustration and a myriad of other emotions that he could not place. “Sam?” Dean asked, still not taking his eyes off the road.

 

“Fine,” Sam snapped, glaring straight ahead. “But either we hit somewhere on our way to Bobby’s, or you lend me Cas until this thing’s over. I need to blow off steam.”

 

Dean nodded, chewing slightly on his lip. “Got a bottle of bourbon in the glove compartment,” he told his brother, shaking his head. “Have a couple of drinks and try to relax. I’ll give you Cas when we get to Bobby’s, no questions asked. Just don’t wreck him, okay?”

 

 “Not permanently,” Sam agreed, even though it would be truly cathartic and delightful to wrap his hands around Castiel’s sun-deprived throat and squeeze until the life drained from the man’s eyes, leaving a vacant and pliable corpse for him to dismember and beat and maybe even fuck, God this situation called for new levels of depravity. He supposed he would have to substitute for “almost” dead, however; Dean would be pissy for weeks if Sam killed his toy.

 

It was hours before the boys reached Bobby’s. Neither of them had called or texted; if they were back on the feds' radar, even using phones linked to pseudonyms was risky. Sam knew that Bobby would let them in and hide them, though they were probably in for a tongue-lashing for not calling ahead. Sam let Dean carry the duffels with their bare necessities into the house, heaving Castiel along after him. The door was locked—Bobby was probably out somewhere, either working or getting shit-faced drunk—but Sam and Dean had long been privy to the location of his spare key. Efficiently, they brought their things inside, and Dean went out to get to work smearing the Impala with grime, making it look like just another junker in Bobby’s field of cars.

 

Having stowed their things in the spare bedroom, Sam untied the sleeping bag and dragged Castiel out. “You stay in this room. Do not make a sound or leave it without express permission from me or Dean,” he ordered, glaring at the prisoner. He heard Dean's footsetpe behind him and turned, seizing his brother around the shoulders. Dean allowed Sam to pull him into a rough embrace, standing loosely as Sam dug fingernails into his back and clung. Sam refused to admit his vulnerability out loud, but he was shaken from outrage, consumed with a cloying, trapped sensation. As weak and toothless as this group seemed, being targeted by them as some kind of potential recruit was something that he had never seen coming. “We’re going to look into this group,” he informed his brother, still clinging to him, uncaring that Dean was practically breathing in fumes of weakness from him. “We’re going to take these fuckers down however we can. It’s personal, now.”

 

Dean nodded, patting Sam comfortingly on the back. “Damn straight, Sammy,” he soothed, stroking his brother’s soft brown hair. “They picked the wrong family to fuck with. We’re going to bring hell on them, and they’re going to beg us to let them live by the time we’re done.”

 

Sam drank in Dean’s comforting words, resting his head awkwardly on Dean’s low shoulder. Weakness or not, he allowed himself to shake, stroked and placated by his brother, until Dean finally pulled away and smiled up at him. “Come on, Sammy. Let’s see what the internet’s got on this freak show.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

The sun beat down on Dean’s back as he bent over the rusted blue pick-up, his leather jacket long since discarded, drenched in sweat, leaving him in only a T-shirt and plaid flannel over-shirt, despite the frigid, snowy weather. It felt good to be outside, helping Bobby with the cars, giving him a break from Sam’s snappish attitude and demands on his time. True, the supremacist group, terrorist cell, whatever it was, was courting his brother, but it hardly seemed to be the threat that Sam thought it to be. The news had not focused on the name “Sam Winchester” past the first week after the letter had been read on air, and Dean was fairly certain that they were in the clear. Researching the group was a waste of valuable time; there was no concrete information on the internet, and the whole thing was a harmless sham, anyways. Any group with truly harmful intentions would have attached their name to some attack by now, surely.

 

“Hold this,” Dean ordered, holding an old, oil stained rag out behind him. Hands cloaked in soft gloves carefully pulled the rag from his fingers, and Dean smiled to himself; he was getting Cas trained up good, that was for certain. The man had been practically docile since they had arrived at Bobby’s, seeming to relish Bobby’s rules—“You are not chaining some kid up in my house, I don’t care if he’s a goddamn fed, you keep an eye on him and don’t get blood on my furniture!”—leaving him much more agreeable to Dean’s orders. Even Sam did not seem to have it in him to smack the agent around as much as normal, preoccupied as he was with the supremacists. It was strange, a completely different pace from life on the road, but to Dean’s surprise, he was not itching to move on. It was pleasant, staying at Bobby’s, chatting and joking with the old man, working on cars with Cas as an assistant, and fucking Sam into the mattress whenever he got too serious and pissy to remember that nothing bad was going to happen to him.

 

Dean eyes the car critically, tapping at the newly refurbished engine, before slamming the hood shut. “New paint job, and she’ll be good to sell,” he told Cas cheerfully, gesturing at his jacket with a booted foot. Castiel knelt awkwardly, shaking dirt and wayward snowflakes from the jacket, folding it over his own, bundled-up arm and following Dean into the house.

 

Dean shrugged his way out of his clothes and showered quickly, ordering Castiel to join him and get the grease out of his hair. The prisoner still watched him warily, as he always did when nude and vulnerable before Dean, but after a night of slamming Sam repeatedly into the headboard until he blacked out, and considering Castiel’s current, obedient demeanor, Dean felt no desire to torment him. Instead, he showered efficiently, and toweled himself off before heading, nude, to the spare room to dig out a clean set of clothing and dress again.

 

“Working hard, or hardly working?” Dean called cheerfully, poking his head into the living room, where Sam was curled loosely on the couch, still unable to sit, his laptop resting on a TV table pulled up against the plush cushions.

 

“Working hard,” Sam replied grimly, scrolling through yet another news station’s website. “Unfortunately, working hard for jack shit.” He scowled at the screen, crowded with speculations about the next year’s presidential elections. “Nothing’s coming up. Just speculations and essays written by fifteen year olds with blogs guessing what these people are up to.” Beside him, his phone buzzed insistently. “And I keep getting calls from a blocked number. Very annoying.”

 

“You sure it’s not someone we know?” Dean asked, sliding down next to Sam.

 

“Picked it up once and whoever was on the other end hung up,” Sam replied, scrolling listlessly down the page. “If it keeps up I’m changing my number. Tried to block it but that didn’t work. Not entirely sure why.” He glared petulantly at his computer. “I think we should move on soon.”

 

Sam’s phone buzzed again, voicemail notice popping up on the screen. “Looks like whoever it is finally put their balls on,” Dean noted casually, nodding at the mobile. “Gonna take a listen?”

 

“Later,” Sam said firmly, exiting the webpage and typing “One Who Brings Light” into the search bar. “I’ve been through all these,” he muttered, eyeing the screen with annoyance. “Fine, who the fuck is this person,” he groaned, reaching for his cell phone.

 

Dean shrugged, reaching for Sam’s computer and scrolling through the search results. He could understand his brother’s frustration; the majority of the results looked to be a hodge-podge of childish speculations, Christian rants, and confused news reports. Dean shook his head, leaning back against the couch.

 

Sam spasmed, sitting up with a yelp and throwing his phone away from his ear, skittering back onto the couch. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouted, slamming his laptop shut and seizing it as he kicked away the TV table, letting it fall to the ground with a loud crash, the hinges collapsing with the impact. “Dean, help me up,” he ordered, dropping his laptop unceremoniously to the floor and clutching at the arm of the couch. “Going to get my number changed _now._ ”

 

“The hell, Sammy?” Dean asked, confused, rising to a crouch and picking Sam’s phone up off the ground. He turned the speaker on and hit the replay button; a loud crackling noise sounded from the phone, and then a deep, raspy voice spoke from the other end.

 

“You’re mine, Sam,” the speaker murmured possessively, soft voice dark and steady, words dripping poison. “All mine. Why don’t you come to me, Sam? Get it over with.  Your clock is ticking; give me a sign, and I’ll come get you. You won’t like it if I have to track you down myself. Let me make you all better. I can break you down and mold you into perfection. You’d like to be perfect, wouldn’t you, Sam? Anything you ask for will be yours. Now, come to me.” A click sounded, and the line went dead.

 

Dean stared at the phone, a chill creeping down his spine. “Do you think that was…” His voice trailed off. Despite Sam’s discomfort with the situation, it had been difficult for Dean to take the threatening letter seriously. It had felt like a joke, a prank letter; their names were not exactly unknown to the general public. “How did they get your number?” he breathed, staring at his brother.

 

“Fantastic question, Dean. The thought hadn’t occurred to me,” Sam growled, shooting his brother a disgusted look. “I guess he just got it from the public list-serve where I keep all my contact information!”

 

“Okay, okay!” Dean threw his hands up, exasperated with his brother's attitude. “Get your computer, we’ll submit a request to change your number online. I’m not comfortable showing our faces in a store right now.”

 

“Fucking—” Sam snarled, seizing his laptop and wrenching it open with a vengeance. “You text everyone who'll need it my new number,” he snapped, pulling up his wireless account.

 

Dean nodded, and sent the new number out as soon as Sam the request had gone through, changing Sam’s contact information in his own phone. “Need to blow off steam?” he asked, glancing at his brother, face pale and twisted in fury.

 

“Maybe if I could walk,” Sam growled nastily. “But no, you had to rip me open and knock me unconscious last night. Fucking hell, man!”

 

“Okay, okay!” Dean threw his hands up in surrender. “I’ll bring you someone. We’ll put a tarp down in the room and you can work them over. I’ll take care of getting them and disposing the body. Bobby doesn’t even have to know.”

 

“You’d better,” Sam snapped, curling in on himself. “And send out Cas. I need something to do while I wait.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

His muscles burned, reveling in the exercise, as Sam ripped through the young man’s bare chest, the cut deep enough to burn but shallow enough that he would not bleed out. The man screamed behind the gag, thrashing wildly in Sam’s grip, his sandy blond hair stained red with blood. “Keep screaming, bastard,” Sam growled, landing a blow on his cheek with the flat of his knife. “Scream good for me. Who’s going to hear you? My brother? Hell, he’s just sad he doesn’t get to join in. Our little pet agent?” He cast a look at Castiel, huddled half-conscious in the corner. “Even if he wasn’t my brother’s broken little whore, he can’t even help himself. Now scream for me, bitch!” He jammed the knife into his victim’s eye, digging the fleshy organ out with a satisfying pop. His victim’s muffled wail sent shivers of pleasure down Sam’s spine, and he bent over, licking blood and pulp from the man’s empty eye socket, relishing the tangy, metallic taste that it left on his tongue. “How does it feel to be powerless?” Sam taunted, scratching at the empty socket with the tip of his knife. “To be the victim? I’ll bet you felt like a victim before, crying about the government and how Daddy never loved you and Mommy ignored you. Bet that was your sad little life, wasn’t it?”

 

The man stared up at him, pleading with his one eye. Sam grimaced and slashed his throat, panting with exhilaration and exertion. “I want another!” he shouted across the house, wiping his hands on the tarp and shoving the ruined eyeball back into the corpse’s socket.

 

“Wait a day or two!” Dean called from outside the door, popping his head in to examine the mess. “Jeez, you worked him over pretty fast,” he commented, stepping over the threshold and reaching down to bundle the tarp around the body. “Get yourself cleaned up while I take care of this,” he ordered, tucking the ends of the tarp in efficiently and swinging the body over his shoulder with a soft grunt.

 

Sam crawled to the bathroom, exhausted from the effort of killing the man, his aching body reminding him in no uncertain terms that it was still under stress and in need of healing from Dean’s treatment the night before. He would have to remember to wash the bloodstains out of the floor; his hands and knees were soaked in the remnants of his kill. Fully clothed, Sam crawled into the bathtub and turned the water on scalding hot, allowing the spray to wash over his aching body, warm rivulets of blood spiraling down the drain, the evidence melting away, leaving Sam’s worries and tension behind.

 


	14. Control and Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel receives an unexpected visit from a very cryptic man; Dean struggles with the sudden emergence of some semblance of morality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word to the wise: volunteering to be the designated driver for someone's 21st birthday will eat you alive and leave you with no energy to update your fanfiction or proofread the chapter properly. I apologize for errors, but I am out of energy and do not trust that my proofreading is perfect. Shred me in the comments if you find mistakes or stupid things, I want desperately to do this story justice.

_“Castiel, please, wake up.”_

_The figures in his dreams had never seemed to acknowledge his presence, had never touched him before. Castiel let out a contented sigh, leaning into the touch as soft, tender fingers trailed along his scalp, gently petting his head. How long had it been since he had felt the comforting touch of a man or woman with no intention of harming him? He smiled up at the small man above him, reaching for his beautiful amber wings. His fingers trailed through air, passing through the feathers, but he did not mind; the man’s hands were solid, and that was all that mattered. “You’ve never noticed me before,” he said, purring in contentment at the light, healing caress of fingers and care._

_The man did not seem to hear him, despite that he could clearly see and touch Castiel. “Castiel, wake up. You’re in terrible danger, and I can’t leave you like this! Wake, Castiel!”_

“Castiel!”

 

Castiel’s eyes shot open, straining in the dark room. The soft caress on his head continued, and he jolted upright, twisting his head away, squinting to see if he was facing Sam or Dean, if they had developed some new sort of sick game. He struggled to make out the shape before him, smaller than either Sam or Dean. His heart thudded—they had brought back a new victim, or perhaps a criminal friend, and who knew what a friend of the Winchesters would do to him?

 

A lamp on the far side of the room flicked on, impossibly, no one near enough to the light to have pressed the switch. Castiel blinked, disbelieving, at the man from his dream, corporeal and present in front of him, kneeling on the floor beside him. Neither Sam nor Dean were in their beds; the crumbling motel room was vacant save for him and the stranger. He was glad that they had not taken him along on whatever spree they had gone off to, but he also knew that they would never leave the door unlocked. He rubbed his eyes, and his stomach leapt—the cuffs were gone, his hands were free, and neither of the brothers would have left him without restraints. “Are they gone?” he asked the stranger, mind swirling with questions, the most pressing ones dealing with his own well-being. “Dead, or arrested, or—”

 

“They’ll be back,” the man answered tightly, laying a tender hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “I’ve been searching for you for so long, brother. You—did you hear us calling for you? The garrison?”

 

“The garrison?” Castiel asked slowly, shoving aside the pit that had formed in his stomach at the knowledge that Sam and Dean would, indeed, be returning. “I don’t understand.”

 

The man winced, shaking his head with disappointment. “Naomi did a number on you,” he murmured, pulling Castiel into a tight hug. Castiel tensed automatically, but, sensing that the man meant him no harm, relaxed into his embrace. “Do you remember anything before the last, oh, however many years it has been?”

 

“How did you know?” Castiel asked, startled. The FBI had known about his amnesia, of course—there was no room to lie about such a thing to his superiors, he had discovered when he had applied for the job. Apart from the FBI and his psychiatrist, however, no one had known about the blank space that held the memories of most of his life. Perhaps the man was FBI, and had been sent to recall him? But he had called him brother—Had he had a family? When he had looked up his records, he had learned that Jimmy Novak was the bastard child of a single mother, dead for ten years, with no other family to his name. A fraternity brother from some long-forgotten college, perhaps, or one of his father’s other children? Had his father even known of his existence?

 

“Because I witnessed the order to have you cast down, with no memory,” the man said tightly, pulling away and holding Castiel at arm’s length by the shoulders. “I am Gabriel. I guess you don’t remember me, huh?” Gabriel laughed humorlessly. “I’d just gotten back from my own self-imposed exile when you were cast down, remember?”

 

“No,” Castiel replied, frowning. Cast down? What could that mean? “You—you called me Castiel,” he said softly, mulling it over in his head. “A nickname? I have never understood how it could come from Jimmy—”

 

“You are not Jimmy Novak,” Gabriel said firmly, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. “Your name is Castiel, and everything you have been told about your past is a fabrication, designed to keep you from remembering who you really are. Unfortunately, part of the working over Naomi gave you means I still can’t get you out of here the way I should, so I need you to listen to me, all right?”

 

Castiel frowned, but nodded obediently. Anything to learn more about his past—who he was. In a way, he was not surprised to learn that Jimmy Novak was some sort of alias—somehow, the identity had never seemed to fit him properly. It had always melded with his life like a weak fabrication, sparse in details and ill-fitting in meaning.

 

“Your name is Castiel. You are brother to me, and, well, too many other people to name in such a hurry. Your brother, Lucifer, is a renegade running a scheme with the intention of destroying humanity. You’ve probably heard them referred to as a terrorist cell or supremacist group—that’s child’s play compared to what Lucifer has planned. He needs Sam Winchester to pull it off. I can’t get you away from the Winchesters right now, so I need you to listen to me. You’re not going to like what I have to say.” Gabriel took a deep breath, a pained expression crossing his face. “You need to stay with the Winchesters. Pretend to be their bitch like you’ve been doing, but guard them, just until we can locate Lucifer and bring him under control. Whatever you do, do _not_ lose Sam Winchester. He’s vulnerable and impossibly weak compared to Lucifer, and if dear old Lucy gets his hands on him, it’s going to make a Winchester murder spree look like a birthday party. They may think you’re their slave, but you’re not. You’re their guard. Think of yourself as a guardian angel.”

 

Castiel frowned—now that, he had trouble believing. “But—”

 

“Castiel, you always loved humanity more than anyone else. Maybe even as much as Father,” Gabriel said, mouth twitching in a humorless grin. “So for the love of Father and his favorites, do not let Lucifer get his hands on Sam Winchester. Keep them alert and on the move. Don’t let them stay in one place too long. Don’t—”

 

Castiel gasped as the door opened, and Dean spilled through the door, soaked in blood, Sam closely behind him. Gabriel turned on his heels, a winning grin crossing his face. “Oh my. Hello, Winchesters!” he called, suddenly jovial. Castiel bit back a scream; did the idiot not realize that he was about to get killed?

 

The brothers stopped in unison, drawing up short before the stranger. “Cas,” Dean said finally, warningly, “we never said you could have guests.”

 

“I’m sorry!” Words spilled out of Castiel’s mouth as his mind went blank with horror. “Please, Dean, Sam, I’m sorry. He’s leaving. He won’t tell anyone you’re here, he’s not trying to get me out—”

 

“Shut it.” Sam stepped forward quietly, hard eyes fixed on Gabriel’s face. “Looks like a little rat crawled into the wrong hole,” he murmured, reaching out at Gabriel. In a flash, the man was on his feet, ridiculously small and unassuming as Sam towered over him. “What brings you here, sniffing around where you don’t belong?”

 

“Allow me to introduce myself,” Gabriel said casually, flashing Sam a charming grin. “The name’s Gabriel. No, no, before you ask, it did not hurt when I fell from heaven.” He reached down and ruffled Castiel’s hair. “I was just paying my baby brother a little visit. You know how brothers are—always getting into scrapes, and you have to come dig them out from time to time.”

 

“Aw, Cas, you never mentioned you had a brother!” Dean called out, a hard edge lacing his voice. Castiel swallowed hard; no, no, he hadn’t done anything, they couldn’t punish him for this!”

 

“Oh, he’s got a whole slew of siblings! He just doesn’t remember us right now,” Gabriel replied brightly, pulling a Hershey’s bar out of his pocket and unwrapping it, biting in with a satisfying crunch. “Chocolate?” he offered, handing the candy to Sam.

 

“Kill him,” Dean growled, nodding at Sam, who reached for Gabriel.

 

Castiel’s breath caught in his throat—the first and only person he had ever encountered who knew him from his previous life, and he was about to fall into the Winchester body count. “Wait,” he burst out before he could stop himself. “Please, please, don’t kill him. He won’t tell anyone where you are or that I’m here, I promise!”

 

“It’s true,” Gabriel replied lightly. “I’ve got much more important things to do that get you guys arrested, and it wouldn’t help me in the slightest to give you away! Now, I’ll just see myself out, then!”

 

Sam blocked his path easily. “Dean, you make the call on this one,” he said, staring down at Gabriel, who craned his neck up to look at him.

 

            Dean groaned, throwing Cas a dirty look. “Well, he did ask so nicely,” Dean said finally, rolling his eyes, resigned. “Fine. We can let him live, but he’s not getting away scot-free,” he decided, nodding at Sam, who grabbed Gabriel and spun him around, pinning his arms behind his back.

 

“What are you going to do?” Sam asked as Cas looked on in horror. Gabriel seemed remarkably relaxed and unconcerned in Sam’s grasp, and Castiel wondered if the man—if his brother—was insane.

 

“Give him a little reminder to not tell anyone about us,” Dean replied, pulling a pocket-knife out of his jacket. “Open his mouth,” he ordered Sam.

 

Castiel whimpered and buried his head in his knees, unable to watch, as Dean reached into Gabriel’s mouth with a blood slicked hand and gripped the man’s tongue. “Damnit, wish we had tongs,” he cursed, and Castiel squeezed his eyes shut. The sound of a knife slicing through flesh was abnormally loud, echoing in Castiel’s ears, and Gabriel let out a garbled cry, the first sign of distress he had exhibited since the brothers had returned. “You gonna tell anyone about us? Gonna have to write it down, and then I’ll come for your hands,” Dean shouted. A wet, fleshy object slapped Castiel’s face; he jumped back, his eyes flying open and landing on Gabriel’s severed tongue, lying bloody and limp on the carpet.

 

“Get out of here,” Sam ordered, shoving the man forward as he heaved blood onto the floor. Gabriel stumbled, and cast a fleeting look back at Castiel, who stared back at the man’s blood-splattered face and vacant mouth. Gabriel smiled—how could he smile after this?—and hurried out the door, closing it with a click behind him.

 

Dean moved forward, kicking the tongue out of the way, and crouched in front of Castiel, reaching out and gripping his chin firmly. “You never said you had a brother,” he noted, voice surprisingly mild. Castiel flinched, waiting for harsh words, a blow, perhaps even his own mutilation on the end of Dean’s knife.

 

“I didn’t know,” Castiel whispered. _You never asked._ “I have less than six years worth of memory. It didn’t seem like something you needed to know.”

 

Dean nodded and rose, wiping his hands on his already blood-soaked shirt. “Clean this floor up,” he ordered, stripping his stained clothes and reaching into his duffel for a clean pair of jeans. “Sam, get changed. We need to have a little talk while Castiel cleans up.”

 

Shaking, Castiel dragged himself to the bathroom and grabbed a sponge and some bleach. He brought them out and pulled a bowl down from the motel’s collection of cheap plastic dining-ware and filled it with tap water, mixing in a liberal amount of bleach and kneeling beside the bloodstains, trying to detach himself from the knowledge that he was scrubbing his brother’s blood out of the floor, and that somehow he had a family he had never known about, a family that at this very moment was involved in some sort of dreadful political schism that seemed to involve bringing down and saving humanity. He closed his eyes as he scrubbed, trying to sort through the new information, but his mind refused to rest, jumping from concept to concept, straining to take in this knowledge and turn it to something that he could use to survive his situation.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“He’s got a brother!” Dean shouted, slamming his fist on the Impala’s dashboard, glaring at Sam, sprawled out in the backseat. “A fucking brother! I didn’t even think about that when we took him!”

 

Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother’s outburst, seemingly unconcerned. “We’ve probably killed a lot of people with brothers,” he remarked, stretching lazily. “Does it matter? We left them both alive, you know.”

 

“Yes, but—shit!” Dean growled, glaring at Sam. “But I never have to know that! I’ve never had to stop and think about someone burying their brother, or wondering where he is, or—shit, Sammy, if it were you I’d be fucking destroyed! We’re doing this to other people? Killing people is one thing—killing someone’s brother is something else entirely!”

 

“It’s really not,” Sam argued, propping himself up on an elbow. “They don’t matter. If you think of everyone else in relation to us, you’re going to drive yourself insane. No one we kill represents you, or me. No one we kill has a brother who sees his sibling the same way you and I see each other, or who means as much as we mean to each other. It’s a completely different situation. Other people aren’t like us, Dean.” Sam shook his head. “Come on. If it were me in Castiel’s situation, you’d have killed whoever had me. That Gabriel jerk didn’t even try to get Cas out, much less take revenge.”

 

“I don’t like it,” Dean growled, but his voice was drowned out as Sam’s phone rang, the merry jingle of his ringtone filling the car with unwelcome noise. “Damnit, can you put your stalker on hold for ten seconds here? We need to discuss this!”

 

Sam hit ignore and turned back to Dean. “What’s there to discuss?” he asked, tilting his head to that his long hair fell into his eyes. “So Castiel has a brother. And? It doesn’t change anything.”

 

“Damnit Sam, don’t you see my problem here?” Dean shouted, slamming his fist on the dashboard again. “Sorry, Baby,” he muttered to the car, before turning back to face his brother. “Every time I look at Cas, I’m going to see someone’s little brother. I’m going to see _you._ You see my problem here? You see why this matters?”

 

“So stop looking at him as someone’s brother and look at him the way you always have. He’s a toy, Dean, a prisoner, a slave. I’m not. It’s really that simple.” Sam sighed, hauling his long, lanky body up as he grabbed the car door’s handle. “This conversation is through, Dean.”

 

“Sam!” Dean shouted, but his brother was already closing the door on him. “Damnit,” he muttered, exiting the car and locking the door easily. He stomped after Sam, back into the dingy little motel room, where Cas was busy on his knees, scrubbing his brother’s blood out of the carpet. It was all too easy, now that he knew, for Dean to see Sam in the same position, on his knees and scrubbing up blood. What would Sam do, if someone injured him the way he had maimed Castiel’s brother? Sam would not just sit there scrubbing up blood—not unless his spirit had been completely crushed. If they had done this earlier, before they had broken down Cas, would he have submitted, docile, to Dean’s commands?

 

Sam was right. Thinking like this was going to drive Dean insane. “Finish up and pack,” he ordered, unable to bring himself to look at the prisoner. “We’re leaving. Gonna go anywhere else. Sam, you drive—I’ve got some questions for Cas, here.”

 

Sam shrugged, and Cas ducked his head, scrubbing harder at a nearly invisible bloodstain. Dean growled to himself and collapsed onto his bed, staring at Sam without seeing him. The whole situation made him think about the deranged terrorist organization stalking Sam. Someone wanted to do to Sam what he had done to Cas; he wanted to put Dean in the same situation as Castiel’s brother. It was not going to happen. It couldn’t.

 

Dean wouldn’t let it.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Dean had never been fond of Sam’s choice of music, and under any other circumstances he would have whined and complained when Sam turned the radio to a smooth jazz station. This time, however, he barely noticed the music, intent as he was on the prisoner beside him, slumped and small in his oversized trench coat. “Why did you never mention your brother?” he asked finally, feeling awkward—he was not used to speaking to Cas with care, as though it somehow mattered how the man felt. Before today, it never had.

 

“I—I told you,” Castiel muttered, eyes fixed on his hands, chained in his lap. “My memory is—is limited, at best. I have amnesia.” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t even know I had a brother. I didn’t think—I don’t even know how he found me.” He hesitated, and looked up at Dean with glassy blue eyes. “He said I have more. Lots of siblings. When I—when I looked myself up, the first thing I remember doing after coming to with no memory, I had the records of a dead mother, but no one else. He said the identity I have was faked, that I am not Jimmy Novak.”

 

“Then who are you?” Dean demanded, pressure throbbing at his temples. It had been so much easier when he could think of Cas purely as a plaything, not as a family member, as someone who might matter to another person the way Sam mattered to Dean.

 

“Castiel,” the man answered quietly. “I always wondered why the name felt so familiar. It’s—it’s my real name.” He dropped his head again, staring intently at his lap. “I don’t know my last name.”

 

“And you never stopped to think we might need to know this?” Sam called back dangerously from the front seat. “We can’t have our slaves keeping secrets. What else is locked away in that screwy little head of yours, Castiel?”

 

“Sam,” Dean began, but Castiel cut him off, and Dean could not even bring himself to be indignant or angry with the man.

 

“Gabriel said that I have many siblings.” The words spilled out of Castiel’s mouth, and he shrank back as though expecting one of the brothers to attack him. “Apparently, one of them is called Lucifer. He’s the One Who Brings Light. He’s the one who’s after Sam.”

 

Sam jerked the wheel, swerving wildly onto the shoulder of the road, mercifully empty. “Care to repeat yourself, Castiel?” he demanded, parking the car in the middle of the street and turning around to stare at the prisoner.

 

“The One Who Brings Light is my brother,” Castiel whispered, looking down at his hands. “One of them, at least. I didn’t—”

 

“Kill him,” Sam ordered, glaring at Castiel. “Dean!” he shouted when his brother made no move towards their captive. “Kill him or I’ll do it myself!”

 

“Dude, are you crazy?” Dean asked, drawing Castiel in close to him. For once, Castiel was glad for the man’s contact. “This makes him even more useful to us! Look, this guy’s not coming near you, but if he does, we have the dude’s little brother! He gets near you, last ditch effort, we trade you for Cas. It’s not like Cas can contact him, we’ve got him way too secured for that.”

 

“Then how did his other brother find him?” Sam demanded furiously. He rounded on Castiel, face twisted in rage. _“How did he find you?”_ he screamed, reaching across the seats and dragging Castiel forward by his coat collar. “You leaving behind codes? Stole a phone while we weren’t looking? Well?”

 

“No!” Castiel cried, staring at Sam, heart thudding erratically, hard enough that Dean could feel it through skin and jacket, as he willed the younger Winchester to believe him. “I didn’t even know I have family until he showed up! I swear, I am not lying!”

 

“Sam.” Dean pulled Castiel back, out of his brother’s grip. “I don’t think he’s got anything to do with this.”

 

“You’re just saying that because he’s set off your stupid “big brother” complex,” Sam snarled, shooting his brother a venomous look. “Suddenly, out of the blue, oh, he’s got amnesia and doesn’t remember his own family? That’s self-preserving bullshit and you know it!”

 

“I had a psychiatrist,” Castiel whispered desperately. “I can—I can help you sneak into his office, look up my file. It’s all there. I—I’m telling the truth, I can even pull my birth certificate, no mention of brothers and it’s under Jim—”

 

“Cas, shut up,” Dean ordered, clamping a hand over his mouth. “Sam. Cool it. I get that even having that bastard brought up pisses you off, but we’re not killing Cas over it.”

 

Sam ground his teeth together in frustration. “Fine,” he snapped, glowering at the pair in the back seat. “That’s just peachy, then. We’ll tromp around the countryside with the brother of the man who wants to kidnap me.” Angrily, he put the Impala into drive and pulled back on the road, speeding forward, _no regard for the gas gauge_ , Dean thought bitterly. He pulled Castiel down onto his lap, stroking the man’s hair, a strange desire to soothe him spreading through his body.

 

Cas was no Sam, but to someone, he was a little brother. Somehow, that knowledge alone hurt, almost made Dean feel bad for what they were doing to their prisoner. Sure, he had no plans to ever let their captive go, but he could at least keep him alive, safe from Sam, just as he would keep Sam safe from this Lucifer freak. No one was allowed to hurt Sam but him, and Dean decided, as he ran his hand through Castiel’s silky black hair, that he was the only person allowed to hurt Cas.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Ruby’s phone jangled, distracting her momentarily from the woman chained up in front of her. “Hold on a minute, Lily my sweet,” she said, patting the tough woman on the cheek, wiping her face as the prisoner spat on her. She glanced at the screen and gasped, warmth flooding through her body. He was calling her, her, of all people! Hands shaking, she hit accept and pressed the phone to her ear. “Yes sir?” she answered, trembling with delight and excitement.

 

_“Ruby, my child.”_ Lucifer’s voice was pleasant and smooth, a delight to her ears after hours of screaming and curses. _“How goes Abaddon’s little operation? Have you gotten hold of all of my special children?”_

“At one point in time or another,” she answered excitedly, clutching the phone as her Master hummed with approval. He had called her—not Abaddon, not Meg, not any of the other demons running this branch of the operation. “We don’t have all of them in custody, but we know where they all are. Have you—”

 

_“Our little pet prophet has been most cooperative, yes,”_ Lucifer said briskly, and Ruby could practically hear his satisfied smile. _“Sam Winchester—the murderer of one thousand men. He is not one of the ones you have at hand, is he?”_

“No sir,” Ruby replied regretfully, shaking her head. “But I can find him. We’ve been keeping tabs on him and his brother. He’s the one?”

 

_“Indeed,”_ Lucifer replied, chuckling. _“Now, this is something that needs to be handled delicately. Follow my orders without deviation, do you understand?”_

“Yes,” Ruby breathed, her meat suit’s heart reacting to the words with a heightened pulse and rush of adrenaline. “Yes, of course I understand.”

 

_“Good,”_ her master replied approvingly. Ruby braced herself against the wall, reminding herself to keep standing in spite of her consuming excitement, her desire to please her father and creator. _“This is very important. You will pinpoint Sam’s exact location and leave a tip for the police, telling them exactly where to find him…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I the only one who is endlessly amused by the idea of Dean silencing Gabriel and threatening to cut off his hands? I feel like I'm probably just laughing at my own references here. Ah well.


	15. Nothing Lasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer gets his hands on Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit the last chapter.... Damn. Now, this is far from the last chapter of the series--it's a four part story, originally just one long epic, but I broke it up at the suggestion of a friend. So, while this is the end of Dominance, the second part will be up soon! (And I highly doubt it will be updated as quickly as this one... I have spoiled you all)

Dean woke abruptly, eyes straining in the dark, barely able to make out the shape of his brother’s empty bed, the dilapidated table and chairs, Castiel curled up on the floor beside his duffel bag. Something was wrong, very wrong. Sam should be here—had he gone out for supplies? A glance at the clock informed Dean that it was not even five in the morning. They had driven all night—why would Sam have been up? Dean sat up quickly, fumbling around on the nightstand for his phone. He called Sam, letting the phone ring until it got to voicemail. No, this was not a good sign.

 

Quietly, Dean rose and went to his duffel bag, easing one of his guns out of the deep side pocket. His fingers brushed over the Impala’s keys—that was not a good sign. He shoved the keys into his pocket and shrugged his leather jacket on over his shoulders, nudging Castiel with a bare foot. “Get up,” he ordered as the man stirred, leaning down and pulling his unlaced boots over his socked feet, lacing them hurriedly in the dark. “Goddamn useless—get _up!”_ he kicked Castiel with a booted foot, and the man yelped, stumbling to his feet in response, clutching his side.

 

“What—”

 

“Where’s Sam?” Dean asked, grabbing Castiel by the shoulder and dragging him closer. “Did he leave?”

 

“I didn’t hear him leave, but he might have,” Castiel replied, meeting Dean’s eyes boldly. Dean glared at him, holding that cool blue gaze fast. “I was asleep. I don’t know why he would have—”

 

The door opened with a loud bang; several armed police officers spilled into the room, guns at the ready. Dean whirled around behind Cas, wrapping an arm around his waist and jamming his gun against his temple, glad that he had thought to grab it as soon as something had seemed off. “Dean Winchester, drop your weapon!” the man at the front shouted, striding forward.

 

Dean snarled and cocked the gun; Castiel tensed in his arms, gripping the edges of his coat with white knuckles. “I don’t think so!” Dean shouted, his mind flying, trying desperately to figure out how the police could have possibly tracked them down—it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, they had been covering their tracks, they had not even made a hit in this town! “I have a hostage! Don’t think I won’t shoot him!” he thundered, stepping back and drawing Castiel with him.

 

“Dean!” Dean went rigid as Sam called his name, shoved forward by an armed officer, hands cuffed tightly behind his back. “Dean, get out of here!”

           

“Sam,” Dean whispered. No, no, this had to be a nightmare. They couldn’t have taken Sam—he couldn’t have let his brother down like that!

 

“Go! I’ll be fine!” Sam jerked against the cop’s iron grip; another officer rushed forward to help hold him still. Sam’s face twisted in pain as the woman jerked his arms up hard behind him, dropping him to his knees.

 

“Give yourself up, Dean,” the officer who appeared to be in charge ordered, eyes searching, looking for a shot that he could take without harming Castiel. “You’ve got a long enough rap sheet without adding resisting arrest to your offenses.”

 

“Aw, worried they’ll be too quick about sending me to the chair?” Dean seethed, digging his fingers into Castiel’s chest. “I don’t think so! You want to take me down, I’m going down shooting, and the first thing to go is this.” He twitched his gun slightly and shot upwards, the bullet grazing past Castiel’s temple, lodging itself in the ceiling. Castiel flinched, drawing back into Dean. “If you want him to live, you’ll back the fuck off!”

 

“No can do, Winchester,” the officer growled, but his hands twitched on his gun. Dean had him; the best thing about cops was that most of them would refuse to kill a hostage to get to their mark.

           

 “Here’s how this is going to work,” Dean said coldly, eyeing the cops with rage. “You give me back my brother and you stay in this room until we’re out of sight, hell, out of the state. You don’t fucking follow us, don’t try anything, or I kill this piece of shit here.” He shook Castiel hard for emphasis. Castiel closed his eyes and stood, rigid, in Dean’s grasp.

 

“What part of no can do is missing your thick head, Winchester?” the officer demanded, holding his ground.

 

“Dean, what fucking part of ‘get the fuck out of here’ are you miss—” Sam’s face contorted with pain as the officer behind him cracked him on the back with her nightstick.

 

Dean swallowed hard, his mind battling itself; he could not save Sammy if he was in prison too. If they wouldn’t give him up… “All right. You heard my brother,” he snarled, failure lodging like a brick in his throat. God, he was pathetic. All this time worrying about that supremacist group, he had forgotten about ordinary dangers like cops. “Go ahead and keep him. Hell, you can even follow me—see if I give a fuck. But you try to bring me in, and this man dies, got that?”

 

Sam grinned at Dean from his position on the floor, but Dean knew his brother well enough to recognize the tremor that passed across his face. Sam was frightened, whether he would admit it or not. Dean cast him a reassuring look— _I won’t abandon you,_ he willed his brother to understand—and carefully circled around the cops, keeping his eyes on them and their guns pointed at Castiel at all times. He had to release Cas to open the door, and grabbed him around the neck, backing slowly out to the car.

 

Dean threw Cas into the backseat and leapt into the driver’s seat, speeding down the road before the cops could make it out to their cars. He turned down the second side street he found, zig-zagging his way through the town, one eye on the rearview mirror at all times. No highways, at least not yet—the roads were empty at this time in the morning, thank goodness, but he would have to be on the lookout for morning traffic in not too long a time. With any luck, he would be out of the county by the time the morning traffic had cleared, and then he could worry about hiding and changing the Impala’s plates and registration.

 

“Did you know?” Dean demanded, taking his eyes off the road for a split second to glare at Castiel. “Did I make a mistake in letting you live? You call the cops on us while we slept?”

           

“No,” Cas answered, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. “You have to trust me Dean—I had nothing to do with this.”

           

“Pretty familiar and cocky for a guy who we were just considering killing a week ago,” Dean raged, turning a corner and speeding onto a vacant back road. “Then how’d they find us, huh? A little bit like your mysterious brother—let me guess, you don’t know?”

 

“I don’t,” Castiel insisted flatly. “I didn’t want this, Dean. I promised—” His voice cut off, and he curled himself tightly into a ball on the floor.

 

“Didn’t want what?” Dean demanded, the vague sounds of sirens in the distance behind him. Shit! He sped up, turning off the road at the nearest clear patch of trees, cursing the damage that it was going to do to the body of his car as he wove in and out of the larger plants, the Impala bouncing and creaking over the rough terrain. If he was correct in the layout of the town, it was only a few acres before he would hit another road—hopefully he was not leaving enough of a trail for the cops to follow his car. “You’d better fucking answer or I’ll shoot you while I drive!”

 

“Gabriel told me to keep an eye on Sam!” Castiel burst out, balling his hands into his coat. “When he came to the motel, when he told me about Lucifer, he told me to keep watch over him and make sure Sam didn’t fall into Lucifer’s traps! I don’t even know what’s going on with this, this whole mess, but Gabriel’s the first person I’ve met in months who I can trust, and I trusted him enough that I was willing to stick around even if I _could_ have escaped to keep an eye on your twisted sadist of a brother!”

 

Dean clenched the steering wheel tightly, enraged by Castiel’s outburst. “You will pay for all of this,” he seethed, “whether you did this or not. This whole thing reeks of your private little family. Mark me, Cas, you’re going to wish I had shot you back in the motel room.” Something like discomfort twinged in Dean, but he shook it off—even if Castiel was not directly involved in Sam’s arrest, and Dean did not see how he could have been involved, Castiel was going to be the one to pay the price for what had happened to Sam.

 

Castiel had the audacity to glare at Dean before drawing his knees even closer against his chin. Dean cursed, staring ahead at the rapidly approaching road. So close—he slammed his foot on the gas and screeched out onto the pavement, speeding ahead, turning his attention to the highway. Three exits—he would make it down three exits, then merge and blend in with the rest of the morning traffic. He was close enough to Bobby’s, but Rufus’s place was probably safer, and more efficient for little things like learning how to disguise the car. Dean glowered at the road, resigning himself to a long, arduous drive, determined to scheme and plan and figure out how to get his brother back along the way.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

He shouldn’t have stepped outside to answer his phone, but the desire to tell off Lucifer’s stupid, stalking ass had been far too great. Now, Sam sat miserably in the back of a police car, his spine one giant, aching mess from the officer’s abuse of her nightstick, his shoulders screaming from being roughly manhandled behind his back, wrists raw from the friction of too-tight cuffs. He shook his head, disgusted with himself. Dean would get him out; he would come up with a plan and hopefully Sam would be free before he even had to go to trial. Certainly, with the years that it took for cases to finish their final appeals and reach the stage where a lethal injection could be administered, Dean would have him free before his execution. Sam was under no illusions; he had committed enough crimes in enough states that somewhere, someone had the jurisdiction to have him executed. He would just have to bust out, one way or another, before he could get to that point. Sam had enough pride that he would not bother lying before a judge, but he would be damned if he was going to make his execution easy for the state.

 

The jail was ramshackle and dilapidated, clearly a symbol more than a working institution in this town. Sam would bet that the majority of the place’s officers rarely saw more action than speeding tickets and drunk in public offenses. He shook his head mockingly at the officer as she exited the car, her partner close behind her, and dragged him roughly from the vehicle. “Lady, you fucked with the wrong family,” he taunted scornfully as she manhandled him into the station, dragging him towards the cells.

 

“You messed with the wrong town,” she replied curtly, shoving him into a holding cell without bothering to unfasten his cuffs. “Now sit there and cool your head until we can get you a ride to a proper prison. I’ll bet the other inmates will be real glad to see a child-killer on their block. Might even take you out and save the state the money.”

 

“I prefer to kill adults, especially dumb pieces of ass like you!” Sam shouted after the woman, who ignored him. Sam shook his head and flopped down on the hard, lumpy prison bed, rolling onto his side as his bound wrists protested. He supposed he was in for a long, boring night. At least in a legitimate prison, there would be other inmates, people with whom he could interact, maybe even kill if a situation arose. For now, it seemed, his only companions were the drunk old man who snored several cells down, and a young woman across from him, who muttered to herself and scratched at the obvious meth-marks on her face.

 

Sam sighed, closing his eyes. He might as well get some rest; he could work on an escape plan once he’d been transferred to a proper prison.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

The officer had been wrong when she had said that he would probably be attacked and killed by his block mates; Sam had no sooner arrived at the prison and been equipped with a surprisingly comfortable orange suit than the guards had hustled him off to solitary confinement. He sighed, resting his head against the wall. He could have dealt with fights and insults and handsy prisoners, but at this rate he was going to die of boredom!

 

Sam lost track of time, his only reprieves from the monotony coming when a guard slipped a tray of food through the door, or when his hands and legs were cuffed and he was transferred to another empty pen for an hour of “exercise”. Sam could exercise in his cell just as well, he thought bitterly, going through round after round of crunches and push-ups and handstands, determined to keep his body in at least as good fighting shape as it had been, if not better.

 

His complete lack of access to other human beings, and to the news, meant that he had no way of knowing what Dean was up to, if his brother had found a way to break him out, or was at least working on it. Days ran together, and he was growing twitchy; he wondered how long the guards planned to keep him in solitary. He was fairly certain there was a yearly time limit on how long a single prisoner could be confined this way—were they making an exception because he was the infamous Sam Winchester?

 

Sam’s next meal was slipped through the slot in the door, and Sam briefly considered refusing food until they agreed to let him out. But no—no, he had to keep up his strength. They would let him out when they were ready, and not a damn moment before then; being force-fed was not an idea that appealed to him, in any case. With an exasperated sigh, Sam listlessly picked at the crumbly roll and unappetizingly gray soup, tasteless and disgusting like the rest of the meals he had been given.

 

Sam frowned as a rush of dizziness coursed through his body. That had not happened before. He pushed the half-eaten tray away as he was swamped with nausea, stumbling to his feet and making it to the toilet just in time to retch, his stomach rejecting the contents of his tray. “What…” Sam muttered as his head spun, leaving him weak and gasping for air. “Help!” he croaked, coughing up a stream of food, vomit splattering on his face as the liquid contents of his stomach splashed out of the bowl. It couldn’t be food poisoning, he hadn’t been sick before—

           

His door swung open behind him. Weakly, Sam turned, prepared for the sneering face of one of his regular guards. His heard seemed to stop as he stared, vision swimming, at the familiar face above him.

 

“Long time no see, Sam,” Ruby purred, bending down and hauling his large, lanky frame up off the floor. “You wouldn’t have heard about the large scale riot going on in the courtyard, but I’m afraid everyone else is going to be just a little bit too busy to help you.”

 

Sam struggled to move his limbs, slack in Ruby’s arms. It wasn’t fair that such a petite woman could be strong enough to carry him, he mused angrily, as she pulled him along. He had wanted to escape the prison, yes, but not like this! Would Dean even think to look for him, back at the cartel’s headquarters?

 

Ruby dragged Sam out of the terrifyingly empty complex, and Sam had to wonder what sort of riot was going on, that there was not even a single guard out by the gates. The woman rolled his limp body into the back of an open van and crawled in with him, nodding at the tall, sneering man in the driver’s seat. “Hit the road, Jake,” she ordered, and the van lurched to life, Ruby pulling the hatch down behind her.

 

“Did you miss me, Sam?” Ruby crooned, stroking his hair with slender fingers. “I told you we’d be back for you.” She smiled, and leaned down, pressing a chaste kiss on Sam’s unresisting lips. Sam tried to struggle, to pull away, but his body refused to listen, remaining terrifyingly limp and compliant on the floor of the car. “Be happy, Sam. You’ve been chosen! I can’t even begin to tell you the wonderful things that lie in store for you with him!” She ran a long, painted nail down Sam’s chest. “Don’t be jealous, now, Jake,” she called up to the front of the car.

 

“I’m not,” the driver replied shortly, eyes fixed on the road. “You know I’m glad it’s not me.”

 

“Such a rigid little follower, Jake is,” Ruby murmured, kissing Sam again. “But you—no, you are a leader, Sam. You’re _his._ Even when I had you back at our little front, I never dreamed that it would be you. It’s an honor to have been the one to get to you first, and to bring you to him.”

 

Dread coiled in the pit of Sam’s stomach as Ruby’s words sank in. Chosen, honor, taking him to—well, to a mysterious _him—_ Sam did not like where this situation seemed to be going. Words bubbled up in his chest to die on his unresponsive tongue. He focused on breathing, allowing his mind to wander as Ruby stroked him and kissed him, her unbroken skin rubbing against him. She did not feed him any blood, and Sam was shocked to find that this made him antsy; with her strangely powerful blood in him, perhaps he could have broken out of this drugged stupor. Instead he was forced to lay there, prone and shaking, her poisonous words slithering into his ear and inciting in him the most consuming terror he had felt in his life.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Rufus’s basement was the best place Dean had ever encountered for making a ransom video. Castiel hung limply, naked, from a set of shackled fixed to the ceiling, his eyes wide and pleading as he stared at Dean from behind a thick gag. “Sorry it had to come to this, Cas,” Dean said, and he was surprised to realize that he was truly sorry—he had no desire to beat his prisoner simply for shock value. Still, getting Sam back was the number one priority that he had, and if Cas had to suffer for the cause, then it was a price Dean was willing to pay.

 

Dean selected a slim metal rod from one of the many racks of torture instruments shoved up against the wall. He flexed it experimentally; it had a slight spring to it, good for leaving welts and bruises, unlikely to shatter bone. He wanted Cas bloody and bruised, not broken beyond repair, for the video. Dean walked forward and snapped the rod against his captive’s back, causing Castiel to jerk forward, away from the unexpected pain. “This will do for now,” Dean muttered, stepping in front of his prisoner and striking him across the stomach, admiring the angry red welt that formed almost instantly as he pulled away. He brought the rod down several more times on Castiel’s chest and stomach, leaving a patchwork of angry red lines and slowly forming bruises in its wake. With a final strike, Dean whipped Cas across the throat with the rod, pulling forth a scream from behind the gag as the man’s head snapped back, exposing the red, raging wound to Dean’s curious fingertips.

 

Satisfied, Dean let the rod clatter to the floor and delivered a hard blow with his fist to Castiel’s abused stomach. The man wrenched, sucking in air, and Dean took the opportunity to punch him squarely in the eye. He rained blow after blow onto Cas, dredging up every ounce of anger and rage he had towards the state, the police, the people who had the audacity to think they could take his brother from him.

 

Only when Dean’s arms had begun to ache, making their exhaustion painfully clear, did he step back to critique his work. Castiel hung limply from his chains, chest, face, and arms mottled with bruises and angry red marks. Blood dripped from the man’s nose, mouth, and left ear; his right eye was swollen shut. A rank puddle oozed across the ground beneath him, giving testimony to the man's inability to withstand the pain and keep control of his bladder at the same time. It was a truly pathetic image, and one that would probably make even Dean feel guilty, were he not so satisfied that Castiel would make a suitable impression on the police, when he made his video to demand his brother back.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“It’s good to finally meet you, Samuel.”

 

Sam warily eyed the man who paced before him, taking in every detail of his appearance. The infamous One Who Brings Light was not as intimidating as he would have expected. Average build, with short, sandy blond hair, the only things that distinguished Lucifer from any other man on the street were the painfully raw looking burns that speckled his face and arms. Sam, stripped naked and chained to a Saint Andrew’s cross, jerked his limbs, struggling on principle. Lucifer paid him no heed, continuing to pace in front of him, occasionally tossing a look in his direction. “You were not an easy man to catch. Clever. I approve.” His bare feet elicited slight sucking sounds from the stone floor, wet with blood and piss and substances that Sam did not want to think about, as he continued his route, back and forth, back and forth. “Why did you hide from me, Sam? Were you frightened?”

 

Defiantly, Sam kept his mouth closed, glaring haughtily at his captor. He twisted his wrists against bindings that refused to budge, casting his eyes about the room, filled with chains and gurneys and tables and cabinets, the contents of which Sam refused to consider. A sparse corner, equipped with a tiny shower and toilet, suggested that this room had been created to confine prisoners for a long time. Sam could only hope that he would not be a long term prisoner, but he knew, though he hated to admit it, that his odds of escape were slim; Dean would never find him here, not with the sophisticated level of secrecy this group had shown.

 

Lucifer sighed, halting in front of Sam. He reached up and clapped an icy hand on Sam’s bare shoulder, the unexpected cold searing Sam to the bone. He yelped and jerked his arm, helpless to break the man’s touch. “Don’t fight me, Sam,” Lucifer murmured, trailing a finger down his chest in an almost loving manner. “There’s no need for you to make this hard on yourself. I want to give you everything, make you happy, make you perfect! Why would you resist this?” Icy eyes stared up into Sam’s own, and Sam turned his head, unwilling to give the man any satisfaction. “Are you worrying about Dean?” Lucifer asked softly, gently gripping Sam’s chin and turning his head, forcing Sam to meet his gaze. Sam squeezed his eyes shut, and Lucifer tightened his grip on his jaw. “There’s no need for that. I will have Dean spared, for your sake.”

 

“What do you mean, spared?” Sam asked tightly, before he could help himself.

 

Lucifer hummed, running a hand down Sam’s chest admiringly. “Come now, Sam, you hate humanity with the best of us,” he murmured, caressing Sam’s pecs with an experimental palm. “You’re not going to complain about my plan to take them all out, are you? I’ll save the special ones—you, and the others like you. But you’re even more special than the rest of them,” he crooned, circling a finger around Sam’s nipple, “aren’t you? The others are special, useful. You—you were made for me, Sam.” He leaned in close, breathing deeply, taking in the scent of sweat and fear that radiated from Sam’s helpless body.

 

“What are you talking about?” Sam demanded uneasily, twisting away from Lucifer’s uncomfortably intrusive touch.

 

Sam felt the man’s lips twitch against his neck as he smiled. “Genocide, Sam,” he replied softly, nuzzling his neck. “I’m talking about wiping your entire, petty little species off the map, about taking my Father’s world and reforming it into something without the scourge of humanity. People like you, people who are above humanity, may stay, but this world needs to be cleansed of the scum and the pitiful and the inferior, wouldn’t you agree? Imagine a world without humans.” Lucifer exhaled, chills unfurling down Sam’s spine as dry, icy breath crept against his neck. “Isn’t that a beautiful world?”

 

“I’m not going to work with you,” Sam hissed, gritting his teeth. “You’re insane if you think I’m going to submit to whatever crazy you’ve got going on in your head.”

 

“Yes, you will, Sam,” Lucifer murmured, resting his head on Sam’s tense shoulder. “One way or another, you will accept your role. You can start small; you only have to work with me, at first. He rolled his head and looked up into Sam’s face; Sam refused to meet his gaze. “Eventually, once I’ve broken you down and molded you into perfection, you’ll cease to just work for me. You’ll be a part of me, Sam. A perfect, beautiful addition to all that I already am.”

 

“That will never happen,” Sam spat, staring hard at the wall in front of him. “I’ll die first.”

 

“Of course it will,” Lucifer replied easily, drawing back slightly from Sam, his hand still tracing icy patterns on the man’s chest. Sam shivered in spite of himself. “You’re in over your head here, Sam. You can outsmart and slaughter your way through human after human, prison after prison, but you can never outsmart me. I am your destiny; even if you escape me, I’ll find you. If you die, I will revive you. Oh yes, I do mean that literally,” he said, smiling, as Sam looked at him sharply.

 

“You’re even crazier than I thought,” Sam snapped, heart pounding in his chest. He was sure that Lucifer could hear it; the man trailed his hand across Sam’s collarbone and settled over his heart, pressing with the beat of the organ.

 

“Am I, Sam?” he asked smiling. “Perhaps, but not in the way that you think.” He stepped back, shed, revealing a smooth chest and obvious muscle under a thin layer of fat, and threw the object to the side. Sam tensed, prepared for Lucifer to undress fully, to assault him, to press that freezing skin against Sam until he screamed.

 

Instead, the man threw his head back and groaned as if in ecstasy. Bright white wings, their edges tipped with gold, unfurled from the man’s shoulders, shining even in the dim light, bright enough that Sam had to turn his head, his eyes burning with the view. They had to be fake; some sort of contraption strapped to the man’s back, cleverly hidden under his shirt. Then Lucifer turned, and Sam could see where feather merged into skin, with folds and membranes too complex to be anything but real, he was sure. The man twitched his wings deliberately, as though to prove their reality, and turned back to face Sam, his face aglow with a bright, menacing light.

 

“I am the Shining One, the Morning Star, the One Who Brings Light,” Lucifer said, smiling at Sam, who gazed back in horror. “I am not named for the Biblical Lucifer; I _am_ the Biblical Lucifer. And you, Sam, will be by my side as I destroy your world.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look for part two of Righteous, the sequel to Dominance, coming soon, probably within the week! It's title is "Prisoner" and it will be listed in the same series, obviously. (Subtle titles are not my thing, if you could not tell.)
> 
> Part two is a lot more sex-heavy and is chock-full of graphic torture scenes, and will likely make this fic look like a birthday party. This is my warning to you.


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